


.. 



mm 










m* 



Wet 







Class 

Book 

GopyrigM - 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



JUNIOR-SENIOR 
HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/juniorseniorhighOOjohn 



JUNIOE-SENIOR 
HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 



BY 
CHARLES HUGHES JOHNSTON, Ph.D. (harvard) 

PROFESSOR OF SECONDARY EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

JESSE H. NEWLON, A.M. (Columbia) 

SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, DENVER, COLORADO 

FRANK G. PICKELL, A.M. (Columbia) 

ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, CLEVELAND, OHIO 



CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

NEW YORK CHICAGO BOSTON 



V* 



ft 



^ 



Copyright, 1922, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



Printed in the United States of America 
A 




MAR 22 1922 

g)CU659271 



FOREWORD 

In 191 5 Charles Hughes Johnston invited me to col- 
laborate with him in writing a little book in the form of 
a manual on the administration of the junior and senior 
high school. Doctor Johnston believed that there wa9 
need for a book that would clearly set forth the best ad- 
ministrative practices in the best American high schools. 
As we worked on the problem, however, we gradually 
changed our plans until it became our purpose to write 
a medium-sized volume on the administration of the 
junior and senior high school, in which we would en- 
deavor to describe not merely some of the best admin- 
istrative practices, but to give, sometimes by implication 
and sometimes directly, the principles upon which these 
administrative practices should be based. 

Doctor Johnston was one of the foremost advocates 
of what has commonly been called the socialized school, 
using the term "socialized school" in a technical sense 
that will be generally understood by the profession. 
"The Modern High School," which Doctor Johnston 
prepared in co-operation with a number of men and 
women, principally men and women working in the sec- 
ondary field, was the first book to treat definitely the 
problems of socializing the administration and teaching 
methods of the high school and to attack the problems 
of the social life and the social programme of the high 
school. This book was a pioneer. It was devoted to 
the development of the idea of the socialized school 



vi FOREWORD 

rather than to definite administrative procedure and 
devices. 

At the time of Doctor Johnston's tragic and untimely 
death in September, 191 7, our project was still some- 
what less than half completed. We had practically 
reached a final conclusion as to the chapters to be in- 
cluded in the book, and most of these chapters were 
rather definitely outlined. Some had been written. 
But our work had already been interfered with by our 
professional duties and finally by the outbreak of the 
war in the spring of 191 7. After Doctor Johnston's 
death, Mrs. Johnston and the publishers decided that 
this book ought to be finished as nearly as possible 
along the lines on which it had been planned. During 
the war period this work was conducted under the 
greatest difficulties on the part of all of the friends 
of Doctor Johnston who have assisted in the volume as 
it stands. 

In the spring of 191 8 Mr. Frank G. Pickell, at that time 
principal of Lincoln High School, a long-time friend of 
Doctor Johnston and a pupil of his, very kindly consented 
to co-operate in the completion of the book and became 
one of the authors. Mr. Pickell made many valuable 
suggestions and criticisms and contributed about one- 
third of the chapters. 

Professor Guy M. Whipple contributed the chapter 
on Adolescence; other friends and pupils, among whom 
I would especially mention Doctor John A. Stevenson 
and Miss Clara Mabel Smith, have assisted with their 
criticism and suggestions; while Mrs. Charles Hughes 
Johnston has been very largely responsible for complet- 
ing the plans of the book as it now stands, for editing 
and writing much of the material, and for carrying the 
work to completion. 



FOREWORD vii 

Those of us who were the friends and pupils of Doc- 
tor Johnston believe that this book, with its many de- 
ficiencies, represents his point of view as regards the 
aims that must characterize our secondary schools and 
the methods of administration, as nearly as it would 
be possible for friends to represent, frequently by con- 
crete illustration, his views on such matters. 

The following chapters were either written entirely 
by Doctor Johnston or were projected and partially 
written by him and completed by Mrs. Johnston. 

Education for the New Democracy. 
Party Platforms in Education. 
^^High School Terminology. 
The High School Issue. 
The Junior High School. 
Junior High School Administration. 
The High School Library. 
The High School and Modern Citizenship. 

Acknowledgment is made to the Educational Review 
for permission to reprint "High School Terminology"; 
to The Library Journal for " The High School Library "; 
and to Educational Administration and Supervision for 
"The High School Issue," "The Junior High School," 
"Junior High School Administration," and "High 
School and Modern Citizenship." 

The remaining chapters were written by those who 
have collaborated upon the book. 

All this work has been done by friends as a labor of 
love for one who contributed in a large way to the de- 
velopment of secondary education in America, who in- 
spired many young men and women to experimentation 
in the adaptation of the school to the needs of boys and 



viii FOREWORD 

girls, and who, in a brief span of less than forty years, 
made for himself a permanent place in the history of 
American education. 

Denver, Colorado. 



Jesse H. Newlon. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Foreword v 

Education for the New Democracy .... i 

Party Platforms in Education 34 

High School Terminology 65 

The High School Issue 89 

The Adolescent Period 116 

The Junior High School 137 

Junior High School Administration . . . . 152 

Curriculum Organization 172 

Socialized Recitation . 187 

Supervised Study 201 

Supervision of Teachers and Teaching . . . 218 

Internal Organization and Government . . . 239 

A Constructive Social Programme 254 

Some Social Aspects of Physical Education and 

Games 272 

The High School Library 284 

ix 



x CONTENTS 

PAOB 

High School Publicity 299 

experimentalism in secondary education . . 319 
New Conception of the Principalship . . . .337 

The High School and Modern Citizenship . . 356 

Problems Emphasized by the War ..... 381 

Bibliography 391 

Index 397 



EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 

Our educational test is coming. It has not alto- 
gether come. Everything in our national life is to be 
tested. Our schools shall not escape. America's en- 
trance into the war made clearer the issues, has indeed 
helped make the issue itself. Our deeds from now on 
must still further clarify this same issue. The war is a 
war of ideas. We may make peace with the Germans. 
We cannot ever make peace with our understanding of 
their ideas of government, repressive externally imposed 
education, and subservience of individuality in matters 
of morality. Democracy, none too clear to us even in 
our former so-called peace era, is nevertheless our su- 
preme and overwhelming issue. If democracy is de- 
feated, it will have defeated itself. Defeat will mean a 
divided mind among democracies and within democra- 
cies. It will mean that we do not know what it means, 
cannot practise it under trying circumstances, and can- 
not spiritualize it sufficiently into an impelling national 
emotion. 

We have in our schools pretended devotion to democ- 
racy. We have associated with the notion certain more 
or less academic ideals of humanity. We have in our 
histories dated it and prated about it. We have never 
seen it as a world wrought-out possession, formed and 
modified by national champions other than ourselves. 
Ours has been, especially of late, a safe, smug, geographi- 
cally protected democracy. We have scarcely realized 
that in Europe, far out of our imagined zone of safe 
security, our modes of life, our institutions, our very 

1 



2 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

selves, our natures and strains of group or personal indi- 
vidualities are at stake, put at stake by ideas and rules 
of living together that violently oppose all that we 
hold permanently precious and sacred. Shall we give 
up our temper of independence, our self-respecting in- 
dividualism? Other nations apparently are in spirit as 
well as in cruel actuality fighting our democracy's crucial 
battles. 

No school children and few school-teachers can go to 
Europe to fight. But the school, no less than every 
other institution of our democracy, must go to war in 
some way. What shall be the nature of school work of 
a nation at war ? The subtle changes in our educational 
procedure will be the profound ones. Our present ag- 
gressive efforts at refinement of technic and our elab- 
orate statistical analyses and demonstrations of more or 
less obvious mechanical defects, our gross or mass faults, 
good enough in their way, must not be checked in their 
process of technic development. There must be no 
let-up, indeed, in any fault-checking device or automatic 
pedagogic help. As Agnes Repplier says, however, this 
is no time to make a national issue of spelling. The 
deeper changes will result from clarified objective, the 
spiritualizing of the motive, and the end of education 
itself. The seriousness of life, the sense of our common 
destiny with our allies, the exhilaration of vital co-op- 
eration for magnificent ends upon which hang tangible 
successes or disastrous failures, the now realizable fact 
that we can really add something to the greatest cause 
of all history by personal sacrifice and energy — these 
motives must in school life find more than merely aca- 
demic expression. The American school-teacher must 
think out a programme of action for education in war- 
time. Our geography, our history, our language work, 



EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 3 

as well as our applied mathematics and science and 
manual training and domestic-science training, are per- 
emptorily challenged. So is our physiology and our 
physical education and all that contributes or might 
contribute to personal efficiency. A school or a teacher 
who is not agonizing over the translation of education 
of whatever grade into national preparedness exercise is 
failing his country at her critical moment. 

Can we rescue ourselves "from the only alternative 
supposed, of a world of clerks and teachers, of co-edu- 
cation and zoophily, of 'consumers' leagues' and 'asso- 
ciated charities,' of industrialism unlimited, and fem- 
inism unabashed? Fie upon such a cattleyard of a 
planet ! " Thus does the great William James voice the 
militarists' romantic view of plunging into war. No- 
where but in such states of high elation can we "weld 
men into cohesive states," make war an infinitely search- 
ing trial. How can we at home and in school feel this 
civic passion and "blow on the spark till the whole 
population gets incandescent"? How can every per- 
son in the nation and every institution wage war in the 
interests of peace and safety for democracy ? Ours must 
be more than a war of fear and of merely material self- 
protection. In 1 910 William James wrote: "It would 
be simply preposterous if the only force that could work 
ideals of honor and standards of efficiency into English 
or American natures should be fear of being killed by 
the Germans." 

Everything now is war for a while, farming, home- 
keeping, dieting, conserving health, keeping cool-headed 
as well as sewing for the Belgians, contributing to war 
funds and soldiering and sailoring. For the schools 
especially there is more in war-time than battleships 
and great armaments. Minds of all must be prepared 



4 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

for intelligent sacrifice. There is no one who cannot 
contribute. Effective war is ceasing to be mystical, 
and is a " symptom, biological and sociological, con- 
trolled by psychological checks and motives." Educa- 
tion can help overcome the "two unwillingnesses of our 
imagination," which hitherto have made war an activity 
somewhat apart from the total national regime. We 
can, as educators, during the trying times just beginning, 
paint a true world order, gradually but not insipidly 
being decided by a fascinating kind of evolution, and a 
world in which effort just as supreme and humanly 
appealing can be expended where contestants can mu- 
tually benefit, not destroy. In short, in war we can be 
studying, thinking, and developing our world knowl- 
edge so as to anticipate and appreciate the elementary 
principles of our three goals, desirable internationalism, 
nationalism, and democracy. Many American educators 
are praising still the thoroughness of the Germans and 
their ability to do hard, unbored thinking. They are 
pointing us to this kind of method of educating. They 
are saying in effect that American and English methods 
of appealing to the individual, avoiding too much super- 
imposition of external authority in the classroom, for 
example, and encouraging, even to the point of more 
shoddy work in the initial stages, is all wrong. They 
are saying to us: "Shift to the German methods and 
beat the Germans at their own game." There is a fal- 
lacy here somewhere. Methods are but expressions of 
the philosophy underneath them. There is more method 
in American and English ways of education than the 
hasty generalizers suspect. The spirit of the thing is 
what externally counts. Democracy's method makes 
the spirit that will win in the end in war or in educa- 
tion. It is the spirit of the English and French soldiers 



EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 5 

that interests us. It cannot be conquered. Neither 
war nor education which looks toward the goal of a mili- 
taristic society inspires them. Nor can it be for us. 
Our educational philosophy must be something like that 
of William James: "That in the more or less socialistic 
future towards which mankind seems drifting we must 
still subject ourselves collectively to those severities 
which answer to our real position upon this only partly 
hospitable globe." "Intrepidity, contempt of softness, 
surrender of private interest, obedience to command, 
must still remain the rock upon which states are built 
— unless, indeed, we wish for dangerous reactions against 
commonwealths fit only for contempt, and liable to in- 
vite attack whenever a centre of crystallization for 
military-minded enterprise gets formed anywhere in 
their neighborhood." 

Making thus educational capital out of this unavoid- 
able immediate conflict into which our whole nation, 
schools and all, has been forced, why should we not as 
educators endeavor systematically to bring it about 
that "men should feel that it is worth a blood- tax to 
belong to a collectivity superior in any ideal respect"? 
Why should not school children now begin definitely to 
learn to take civic and international relations and obli- 
gations to democracy so seriously that they will "blush 
with indignant shame if the community that owns 
them is vile in any respect whatsoever" ? Thus we can 
right now in this stage, may it be the final stage, of 
necessary resort to pure force, build for our children 
"on the ruins of the old morals of military honor, a 
stable system of morals of civic honor." 

The modern democratic state is in danger, real dan- 
ger. Other states without our democratic organization 
have done some things in a far better way than our 



6 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

democracy has done them. Many doubters of democ- 
racy among us have a deep impression of our amor- 
phousness, our ignorance, our disorder, and our lack of 
discipline. Our whole democratic government, demo- 
cratic social life, democratic tradition, and democratic 
education enrages the sense of organization and ideal of 
social order of many a citizen of our own country. 
Democracy in America has not been even clearly idealized, 
much less realized. As H. G. Wells has discerningly 
pointed out, it is the method of democracy that we need 
to discover. 

His purpose was to reason out the possible methods of gov- 
ernment that would give a stabler, saner control to the world. 
. . . He believed still in democracy, but he was realizing more 
and more that democracy has yet to discover its method. It 
had to take hold of the consciousness of men, it had to equip 
itself with still unformed organizations. Endless years of pa- 
tient thinking, of experimenting, of discussion lay before man- 
kind ere this great idea could become reality, and right, the 
proven right thing, could rule the earth. ... It is the newest 
form of human association, and we are still but half awake to 
its needs and necessary conditions. For it is idle to pretend 
that the little city democracies of ancient times were compara- 
ble to the great essays in practical republicanism that mankind 
is making to-day. This age of the democratic republics that 
dawn is a new age. It has not yet lasted for a century, not for 
a paltry hundred years. ... All new things are weak things; 
a rat can kill a man-child with ease. 

Let us pledge ourselves to service. Let us set ourselves with 
all our minds and all our hearts to the perfecting and working 
out of the methods of democracy and the ending forever of the 
kings and emperors and priestcrafts and the bands of adven- 
turers, the traders and owners and forestallers who have be- 
trayed mankind into this morass of hate and blood — in which 
our sons are lost — in which we flounder still. 1 

1 Quoted from " Mr. Britling Sees It Through." (Macmillan Co., 
1916.) 



EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 7 

Can we as schoolmen discover this democratic method, 
free ourselves from any ll landed aristocracy" of learning , 
bring to earth an education of every-day living, organize 
school life effectively into those institutional, group, and 
individual exercises which afford genuine practice in man- 
kind's u practical republicanism" ? Can America, now a 
participator in the finish fight which is to decide the fate 
of democracy, catch in her educational vision the elemental 
principle of this democracy and of its method as it seems 
to be laid bare and naked to such Englishmen as H. G. 
Wells and Bertrand Russell ? l 

Some one has recently said that no nations are in any 
true sense so completely the products of their school 
systems as are Germany and America. He adds sig- 
nificantly that the most fundamental aspect of the Ger- 
man educational philosophy has till now received lit- 
tle emphasis. Do we understand any better what is 
the most fundamental aspect of American education? 
Wanted — a steering American philosophy of education, 
clear enough, embracing enough, gripping enough, to 
become the unifying principle which will ultimately 
bring together the various conflicting and rival forces 
in American life. 

Reiterations of the conviction that the philosophy of 
America must be a courageous philosophy of the future 
suggests that it would be well to have some articulation 
of our philosophy of education, if there is to be any dis- 
tinctive American philosophy of education rooted in 
our democratic civilization. We cannot borrow foreign 
educational systems, neither can we borrow the funda- 
mental principles which are to underlie our own system. 

1 For powerful expression of the meaning of education in a demo- 
cratic state, see B. Russell's recent book, "Why Men Fight" (Cen- 
tury Co., 1917), and Mr. Wells's novel referred to above. 



8 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

From the signs of the times we can be certain that we 
are going to fight over educational questions much more 
vigorously than ever in our history. Let us hope that 
we can anticipate, but entirely on the intellectual and 
moral plane, the contests now going on in Europe. 
There is to be no serene sky and smooth sea for Ameri- 
can educators in the next decades. We need not try to 
escape. The clashes in educational philosophy and in 
conviction as to administrative adjustments to the need 
of democracy must have search-lights fearlessly thrown 
upon them. 

Chesterton reminds us that he who most strenuously 
avoids a philosophy is most clearly expressing one. 
There are philosophies in education, although they may 
be chiefly the brands to which Chesterton refers. We 
are of late, however, pretty surely in revolt at such 
inarticulate philosophies of the schools. May not the 
schoolman find something to his purpose in relating his 
policy of school administration definitely to some mod- 
ern system of philosophical thought? "To know the 
chief rival attitudes toward life," to appreciate the rea- 
sons for them, and to force one's self to hark back to 
fundamental considerations when initiating school re- 
form or justifying school procedure ought to be an 
essential part of the professional equipment of the school 
administrator. Otherwise, curriculum construction, to 
select a typical administrative function, must degenerate 
into mere checkerboard manipulation of programmes 
and schedules, or at most into adjustments to the merely 
more obvious and pressing demands of an economic, 
political, or traditional sort. 

All educational organizations have in their member- 
ship two types of workers. One group, usually the 
smaller in numbers, tends eternally to force considera- 



EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 9 

tions of policies and specific administrative measures 
back into the field of fundamental principles. They 
try to deduce their conclusions from some thought sys- 
tem of theirs which for them appears to have absolute 
finality. In drawing up reports, making recommenda- 
tions, and interpreting or evaluating educational mea- 
sures on hand, this group tends to think over much of 
the provisos which must be inserted, of the qualifica- 
tions to be made, even of the questionable outcome of 
the very procedure to be recommended. It never cheer- 
fully acquiesces in mere majority consensus of practical 
judgment. It exasperates the practical group, the dom- 
inant group generally. This latter group soon tires of 
the finer distinction, its members think in terms of pro- 
grammes of action. They go roughshod over techni- 
calities with the attitude "our position is in the main 
right. Here goes! The language doesn't matter. 
Let's get something done." Whereas the other group, 
the philosophically minded, feel so inspired with the 
portentousness and the symbolic suggestiveness of the 
project that they endanger cleanness of execution. These 
more narrowly empirically minded aim at clearness 
and preciseness of executive detail, but care more about 
the next step than about the far-off final completion 
of the enterprise being projected. More in touch with 
the field where the work is to be done, they take 
the means employed purely as an instrumental thing, 
as a matter-of-fact next step. And so the motion is 
carried, the school machinery affected set in motion 
(even if much of it is lost motion), and educational 
history, such as it is, is made. It is easy to divorce 
articulate philosophy from formulation of school 
policy. 

For the most part, technical or professional philoso- 



10 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

phers have overlooked the actual educative procedure 
as naturally professional students of education have as 
a body drifted away from philosophy and sought affilia- 
tions rather with their colleagues in modern psychology, 
in social science, in economics, and in political science. 
This estrangement is unfortunate. Most philosophical 
questions have a humble but very vital counterpart in 
educational thought and educational practice. Educa- 
tion for all of us is a partially ideal performance. Our 
crude, inadequate, inarticulate, unintentional philoso- 
phies are none the less real. Educators and school 
boards must act, and they are lucky, as a rule, if there 
is any principle at all in sight to direct their action. 
Most professional philosophers think they cannot afford 
to be disturbed by importunate requests to relate to 
their fundamental systems of thought the amazing list 
of practical school problems any school administrator 
can without a moment's notice reel off to them. Like- 
wise most school administrators realize that they cannot 
wait indefinitely for the leisurely explorations of their 
fields by luxurious and fastidious ontologically or epis- 
temologically minded philosophers — wait till they in 
their unhasting comfortable leisure and in their aca- 
demic atmosphere, like an oracle, give them a final an- 
swer. Yet there must be, despite B ertrand Russell (' ' Sci- 
entific Method in Philosophy")? some simple results 
which philosophy has at present achieved which bear 
upon the very real outstanding problems of education. 
It is, indeed, astounding that philosophers have dared 
keep themselves so detached from and uninterested in 
educational practice. It is difficult to appreciate their 
complacency in the presence of the thought agonies of 
thousands of practical educators who can only think 
while they work. 



EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 11 

We educators of all ranks know that our emphases are 
often upon isolated aspects of the whole educational 
ideal. Our thoughts become tangled as we direct our 
different and uncorrelated partial school processes. We 
do not have time to stop long enough to see how the 
partial thoughts accompanying our partial and isolated 
processes are or are not elements of some more under- 
standable and more comprehensive view of education as 
the motor co-ordinate of the real life of the sound phi- 
losopher's reality. We all know well enough that there 
is lack of organic coherence in our totality of the neces- 
sarily scrappy views which we apologetically expound as 
we seek to justify in some confusion our practice. Such 
hasty attempts of ours to expound our views in terms 
of theoretical conceptions of the totality of the process 
which is going on under our eyes and by our hands has, 
we know, missing links. 

America's failure to make articulate a philosophy of 
education, and her unrealized belief that somehow 
democracy in the abstract will be the talisman that ulti- 
mately, in spite of our muddling along, will mysteriously 
work out our individual and national problems for us 
has resulted in a generation of Americans characterized 
by "incertitude and mental fog," undeveloped capaci- 
ties, and "tepid characterlessness." 

Probably our country has seen no generation so miserably 
educated as we have been. . . . There has come for our town- 
bred generation a complete divorce of hand and mind. . . . 

That energy which might have gone into constructing things, 
learning from science how our modern world went round, get- 
ting acquainted with our community, where we got best "pre- 
pared for life as adults by experiencing in childhood what had 
meaning to us as children" — most of this energy went for most 
of us in idle play, overfed romanticism, obsessing sex-fantasy, 
or a quick dive into " blind-alley " occupations. 



12 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

Those of us without any startling capabilities or vices settled 
down to a routine, closed to all except local interests and the 
humdrum facts of daily life. The majority of young men were 
swallowed up in specialized office or factory work, which made 
no drafts whatever on their interest or initiative, or against 
which they could only chafe impotently. The young women 
went into a sort of specialized idleness, with obsessions of dress 
and restless search after diversion. Those of us with ambition 
and some kind of definite flair, destitute of training and cursed 
with absurdly inadequate notions of the complicated society in 
which we lived, could only flounder. The best enthusiasms got 
drained off into the shadowy ways of social idealism and "ser- 
vice" which too often ended in disillusionments and cynicism. 
Nowhere any tools we could grip; nowhere any knowledge for 
constructing them or skill for reworking what there was. Our 
education had neither given us the training with whose aid we 
could escape the rut, nor any sweet alleviations of tastes and 
culture to make endurable our ineffectiveness. One wonders if 
there was ever a generation more thoroughly dissatisfied with 
itself, and from whom society had more cunningly removed the 
opportunities for self-expression and the chance to get intellec- 
tually and manually at grips with things. American industry, 
politics, letters, already feel the blight of this incapacity. Origi- 
nality, picturesqueness, raciness of expression and attitude, dar- 
ingness of social invention and experimentation, fine flair of 
decorative art, and even robustness of dogma, seem all to have 
been washed out of this colorless and uninteresting generation. 
. . . Where youth finds its niche or gets its opportunity, it 
responds eagerly and capably. The tragedy has been that a 
repressive " education" which callously ignored the demands of 
life has done its best, inj;ways which we are beginning to see 
as almost malevolently ingenious, to separate youth from its 
opportunity. . . . For when education becomes the child's 
learning to do things instead of the teacher's teaching it sub- 
ject-matter, the labor is immensely relieved. The teacher as 
helper and observer has a wholly new outlook. The old peda- 
gogy becomes meaningless. Teaching becomes the life-blood 
of society. 1 

1 Excerpts from Randolph S. Bourne's review of Dewey's "Schools 
of To-Morrow," in The New Republic, June 26, 191 5. 



EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 13 

Such an "educational lament " as this must needs 
make one pause before determining which one of the 
" chief rival attitudes toward life" shall be embraced: 
on the one hand, a "repressive education which callously 
ignores the demands of life," but which beckons allur- 
ingly to the schoolman and promises a perfected sys- 
tem, complete in all details, smoothed out, refined, per- 
manent, applicable at all times, in all situations, to all 
individuals, a system which admirably lends itself to 
formula and device, and which allows as a reward for 
successful effort the final satisfaction of an irrevocable 
verdict of one more established eternal truth; on the 
other hand, an experimental education, with its infi- 
nitely interesting but discouragingly endless possibilities 
of revision and change, modification and adaptability, a 
programme which frankly acknowledges the unescapable 
fact that permanence is impotent, but that the ques- 
tioning spirit is the ultimately fruitful one. 

Is it not better, perhaps, to frankly assume the role 
of an experimentalist in education, seeking not to find the 
eternally one-right-way of solving our many perplexing 
problems, nor to catalogue, codify, tabulate, and per- 
manently label every principle, process, method, or de- 
vice found to have been effective in some particular 
situation at some particular time? To label anything 
truth is, indeed, to dispose of it in a highly satisfactory 
manner. The more truths discovered and catalogued 
the neater, the more compact, the more satisfactory is 
the result, and an educational system built on these 
foundations holds out tempting possibilities to those 
who temperamentally care for scientific exactness, nice- 
ness of detail, and finality. But experimental science 
must remember change. Even though one chooses to 
ignore the fact, change is the basic factor in social phe- 



14 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

nomena, and must be considered in any effective pro- 
gramme. Surely educational science, more even than 
any of the other social sciences, must utilize this funda- 
mental social principle, and no degree of intellectual 
lassitude will excuse the educator for his unwillingness 
to face the fact of social change or to undertake the pos- 
sibly disagreeable task of attempting to control and 
direct it. In experimental education the serious work 
is just this: To observe the many changes going on in 
the social body; to direct and control these through the 
instrumentality of the school; to forecast and interpret 
new changes, and to anticipate possible results with 
possible methods of control; to invent new social ma- 
chinery devised to secure for society certain values 
considered fundamentally necessary in a democratic 
state. 

Experimental education, then, must be denned in 
terms of change. This means that there is no perma- 
nent solution for any school problem, but each one must 
be constantly redefined in the light of new evidence. 
It means that the educator must stand ready to open 
and reopen each question, follow where the argument 
leads, investigate, study, and experiment, and then 
from the obtained results evaluate, criticise, and formu- 
late conclusions, which may serve only as a tentative 
basis for more experimentation. For this reason the 
very excellencies of an experimental programme present 
to our ambitious worker the most irritating perplexities. 
Nothing is ever completed. No question may be closed 
up. His work is never done. Results obtained to-day 
are invalid to-morrow. Finality is an unused word. 
But, the question may arise, will not such a programme 
put too great a premium on mere innovation ? Will not 
a school system founded on this basis lack stability and 



EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 15 

order ? The answer would seem to be that gruelling and 
tantalizing confusion is the price we always pay for sub- 
sequent clarity. Surely a conception of education as an 
institution which projects new ideas as well as testing 
them out and discarding or retaining them according to 
the results of the test is better than one which merely 
puts ready-made ideas into execution. And so the key- 
note to an experimental programme must be flexibility, 
adaptability, elasticity, and only as school practice can 
make these words alive with meaning will mistakes be- 
come positive elements in improving conditions, and in- 
telligent means of directing reconstruction. 

For this reason the reorganization movement is prob- 
ably the most complete exemplification. 

The problem of American education to-day is to 
transform a formalized institution into life. To get an 
adequate conception of the new democracy it is neces- 
sary to get a new conception of the psychology of the 
educative processes, and to realize that they are expres- 
sive processes, that knowledge is a real process, a real 
method of expressing, and hence that all school exercises, 
as reciting, studying, student activities, auditorium 
performances, shop training, laboratory technic, proj- 
ects, socialized class meetings, and other new and more 
intimate sorts of exercises, with the supposedly aca- 
demicized humanity subjects, must smack of realness. 
The new democratic state may only be realized through 
a rejuvenated public-school system, a rejuvenation of 
our entire educational reorganization and administra- 
tion. The reorganization movement, as such, is an 
attempt to think educational values in terms of democ- 
racy that has been redefined, and that must still be 
redefined many times before arriving at a satisfactory 
solution of our social problems. For this reason the 



16 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

reorganization movement, and more particularly the 
junior high school movement, implying, as it does, the 
reorganization of the three critical intermediate grades, 
is the most complete exemplification of an experimental 
philosophy. 

The junior high school movement is essentially an 
American movement, and should be denned in terms of 
its profound meaning. It should suggest that our ideal 
of universal education has not been realized, and that 
a new organization is needed which will eliminate the 
undemocratic selective principle now operating which 
tends to break up our body politic into social classes. 
It should suggest an attempt to put into operation a 
conception of secondary education new in the history of 
the entire world, where the class distinction between 
elementary and secondary education may be entirely 
wiped out. It should suggest an attempt to take cog- 
nizance of the many changes going on in the social 
body, to direct and control these through the instrumen- 
talities of the schools, to forecast and to interpret new 
changes, and to anticipate possible results with possible 
methods of control. The junior high school movement 
should imply a rejection of outgrown methods and pre- 
arranged subject-matter, and accept as the very founda- 
tion-stone of educational method the principle of utiliz- 
ing to the full the naturally inherited possibilities of the 
learning processes rooted in the instinctive and the im- 
pulsive attitudes and activities of children and youth; 
and utilizing these as far as is practicable, reproduce as 
nearly as possible on the learner's plane the typical con- 
structive social life of the outside world. Finally, the 
junior high school is a concrete attempt to invent new 
social machinery devised to secure for society that most 
necessary value in a democratic state — the development 



EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 17 

of personality. Intellectual growth, habit formation, 
physical, social, and moral development, aesthetic appre- 
ciation and vocational preparedness are all factors in 
personality, and are all dependent on the school for 
systematic development. Schoolmen must grasp the 
junior high school idea, not as a period definitely marked 
off for covering ground in clearly differentiated fields of 
natural science, social science, language, mechanic arts, 
and domestic economy, but rather as the three-year sec- 
tion of our public-school system, which, with its newly 
developed types of courses, methods of teaching, policy 
of school management, and intensive study of the indi- 
vidualities of pupils, seeks to direct them in rinding 
themselves by exploiting their various possible powers 
or aptitudes — leaving to the senior high school the func- 
tion of specially preparing them for a definite pursuit or 
for definite continuation of education in higher institu- 
tions. Is not the junior high school idea just our at 
present clumsy and lumbering but unmistakable attempt 
to shunt our public educational machinery during this 
particular three-year period into the field of diagnosing 
and exploiting, by means of more various kinds of train- 
ings, the individualities of pupils? 

To get the real significance of the junior high school 
movement as an exemplification of experimental educa- 
tional philosophy, we must recognize that what we have 
been wont to think of as inevitably educational machinery 
must not be machinery, but must rather be that better 
conceived school organism which is capable of such 
administratively flexible adjustments that it, too, just 
as classroom teaching, can express a fundamental phi- 
losophy of education. There seems to be a growing 
conviction that there must be a philosophy of school 
administration itself, as well as of so-called educational 



18 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

values, which from year to year may show a steady de- 
velopment of administrative doctrine. 

There is an unfortunate distinction between admin- 
istration and teaching. It is based upon the view that 
administration is mechanical, a sort of routine use of 
devices, an employment of practical, temporary ad- 
justments, and a consumption of time in a clerical occu- 
pation and in more or less futile, or only temporarily 
necessary, pupil, teacher, and parent conferences, while 
real teaching is both more spiritual and more truly edu- 
cational. I think this is unfortunate. There is a real 
technic in organizing and managing student activities, 
in creating an esprit de corps in the school or class 
or classroom group, in athletics or otherwise, in plan- 
ning and carrying through the year a series of teachers' 
meetings, in conceiving and putting successfully into 
operation a system of supervised study, in making a 
system of educational guidance a real part of the school's 
every day work, or in making athletics democratic, 
moral, and educational. There are spiritual and techni- 
cal sides to administration as well as to teaching. Super- 
vised study, for example, means something much more 
fundamental than some arbitrary lengthening of the 
class period, and mechanical division of its activities 
into study and recitation. It means a new kind of edu- 
cative process and a new ideal of mental economy and 
of co-operative intellectual work through class or other 
group organization. Educational guidance means more 
than mere psychological diagnosis or vocational infor- 
mation and placement. It means the more fundamen- 
tal effort to establish in pupils proper internal rather 
than externally imposed and superficial motives for 
school work, and to administer the whole curriculum in 
this more effective way. 



EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 19 

Library administration means not only books and 
facilities, but it means the organization of the whole 
school with definite reference to the library centre; it 
means the making of discriminating readers out of the 
whole school membership through daily exercises which 
are as natural a participation in the life of the school 
and the work in school subjects as the recitation itself. 
School management in this higher and more spiritual 
sense implies technic, implies minimal standards of ad- 
ministration, implies peculiar professional preparation 
and personal fitness of the administrators, implies a high 
degree of co-operation of all the forces of the school. 

One of the most important of these administrative 
problems of the junior high school, and probably the 
most difficult for educators, is that of curriculum differ- 
entiation. Plato has set us a model of curriculum think- 
ing still unsurpassed in many respects. The lack of dif- 
ferentiation for different groups who are to be educated 
marks the element of weakness in his ideal scheme, so 
far as our modern high school instructional and training 
offerings are concerned. Herbert Spencer, in his first 
essay on education, set another pace for curriculum- 
makers, and gave a better illustration of the definite 
steps necessary in actually making specific curriculums. 
His doctrine of the relative values of the different edu- 
cational ends to be attained by curriculums, and his 
further discussion of the hierarchy of subjects of instruc- 
tion to be employed in gaining the ends sought, offers 
still a model of method for the ambitious curriculum- 
builders of to-day. Spencer's greatest contribution here 
is that he named our problem for us. He did his work 
so thoroughly that we are able to disagree clearly with 
him. In the very statement of our dissent Spencer 
forces us to fundamental considerations. He builds for 



20 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

us one curriculum, builds it so well, and knits each part 
to the other so plausibly, and with so much faith out- 
lines the ramifications of educational effects we are to 
expect, that he almost persuades us, not only that here 
is a good curriculum, but that it is the only necessary 
one — a curriculum of science ! Curriculum-makers, like 
other people, have always sought the philosopher's 
stone, the single panacea. Spencer was, as old Cato, 
what Thomas Dixon calls one of the world's "One-eyed 
Fools.' ' First, he thought that giving all subjects a 
scientific flavor would solve the problem of curriculum 
needs. He did not realize how complex and difficult of 
application his conception of science was to prove to be. 
Second, as Royce remarks, he thought naively that the 
world should ultimately be made up of "little Herberts," 
men, as William James says of Spencer, "of remorseless 
explicitness," "of pedantic rectitude," "with curious 
dryness and literalness of judgment," "a lukewarm 
equable temperament, narrowness of sympathy and pas- 
sion, fondness for mechanical forms of thought, and im- 
perfect receptivity." Spencer planned for all to be 
trained for special professional capacities in the appli- 
cation of scientific laws generally. He saw no difference 
between the great popular need and ability to under- 
stand and profit by knowledge of science and the strictly 
limited needs of the professional scientists themselves. 
We do not admit to-day that what is essential to the 
specialist must be fed in painful broken doses to the 
race, that our public education in sanitation is identical 
with that of the plumber's, or that our family knowledge 
of antiseptics must be acquired, if at all, in the same 
way that a surgeon prepares himself for the practice of 
his profession. 

Again, in modern curriculum-making we cannot rely 



EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 21 

on the other basis proposed seriously by Spencer, 
namely, as Yocum has noted, that what has proved 
effective in the past survivals of the race is now still a 
sufficient basis. On the other hand, here again we must 
note that we have a heterogeneous pupil body of one 
and one-half million adolescent boys and girls, repre- 
senting many-sided social appeals, national, state, mu- 
nicipal, rural; appeals, also, of every social grade and 
of a bewildering variety of vocational requirements. 
These appeals must be analyzed for our different actual 
pupil groups, classified, evaluated as leading to " ener- 
gizing" or "non-energizing" vocations; and for Spen- 
cer's academic basis we must substitute the principle of 
designing courses and curriculums according to whether 
they have or do not have systematized information and 
definite trainings. We must know, in a given case, 
which of these knowledges and trainings are requisite for 
and common to the life demands of the majority in each 
of the groups into which we can, for this curriculum 
purpose, break up our particular bodies of high school 
pupils. Spencer did not anticipate and many modern 
writers do not see this era of curriculum differentiation 
that is upon us. Many do, however, and it is to these 
we must look for tentative solutions and methods of 
attack. 

There are those who oppose all variations from a type 
design in curriculum construction for all parts of the 
country and for all states alike, and oppose all modifica- 
tions of school subjects, as these modifications are to be 
determined by the curriculum settings in which they 
are placed. The radical wing of the other party rele- 
gate these to the outer darkness. They are in the dark 
ages of modern educational intellectualism and aca- 
demicism. 



22 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

Again, there are those who wish to see carefully de- 
vised lines of training for distinguishable pupil groups 
wherever the basis for this distinguishable sort of cur- 
riculum treatment is clearly derived from adequate psy- 
chological analysis of pupil's interests and aptitudes and 
supported JurtJter by vocational analysis of local and wider 
occupational possibilities. These are in the van of the 
modern movement for a more flexible programme of 
education for the beginning adolescents of all types. 
They are par excellence experimentalists. 

Curriculum differentiation implies the organization ol 
courses into distinctive curriculums definitely planned 
with reference, not to each individual's personal needs 
only, but with reference largely to the different educa- 
tional requirements of special groups of pupils, curricu- 
lums based upon social as well as upon psychological 
considerations. This system emphasizes chiefly the 
election of curriculums only, allowing some leeway 
within each curriculum, but allowing for the time little 
freedom for individual choice of studies belonging to 
other curriculums than the one to which the pupil has 
been assigned. 

Some who earnestly deplore the movement to differ- 
entiate curriculums for the seventh, eighth, and ninth 
year pupils have evidently vividly in mind a process of 
pigeonholing arbitrarily selected groups of helpless chil- 
dren and contriving for them a sort of curriculum in 
which every one of the time-honored and, of course, in 
many cases, experience-tested school subjects are un- 
recognizably altered. This is, indeed, a possible type 
of differentiation, but an extremely unlikely eventuation 
of the on-the-whole wholesome movement to vary in 
less radical ways schemes of training for particular 
groups, such as girls and boys, prevocational and aca- 



EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 23 

demic-minded, slow-moving and fast-moving. One can 
have genuinely differentiated curriculums (two or more) 
and still have many of the same courses functioning in 
each of the curriculums administered by the school sys- 
tem. It is very true that many of the courses will tend 
to become modified because of their curriculum settings; 
but this again in turn in no way precludes nor lessens 
the probability of their preserving their distinctive edu- 
cational values as subjects. This kind of modification 
of courses is in principle not different from the method 
now of all good teachers in varying illustrations, exam- 
ples, theme assignments, history topics, and special sup- 
plementary elementary science problems, for the differ- 
ent mental constitutions of the members of classes. It 
is merely, from this point of view, pushing farther 
through administrative technic the school's adaptation 
to the problem of individual differences. If our psy- 
chological basis for differentiated treatments for groups 
of pupils is one guide, and if the, also unescapable, social 
and industrial needs of these same groups figure too in 
our school plans of administering instruction, we may 
reasonably hope in time so to harmonize these two pro- 
found and sometimes conflicting principles as to evolve 
from them both a reliable guide for immediate curricu- 
lum-making. 

Curriculum differentiation, starting after the rear- 
ranged and systematically reorganized and condensed 
six years of elementary education, does not mean the 
shifting of the educational centre of gravity from the 
interest of a high collectivism to the individual self and 
his immediate welfare, as some think. It means, rather, 
that a socialized conception of all education is to prevail 
during the twentieth century; and that, even though 
necessarily different curriculums may contain different 



24 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

sets of ideas, different items of information, different 
kinds of exercises for perception and memory and judg- 
ment and reasoning, and different actual skills and 
physical habits, still the spirit and character of it all can 
well be social, thereby in its double contribution effect- 
ing freedom, elasticity, and variety among individuals 
and, for this very conditioning fact, a consequently richer 
democracy of real self-directing individuals who have had 
meted out to them by a public educational system the 
sort of education which the industrial and social state 
made necessary from the very fact of the humanity of 
man himself. 

If education, however, is to become a real method of 
democracy, it must contribute more than the purely in- 
tellectual and social aspects of personality. An educa- 
tional policy not permeated by the moral motive is 
likely to be vicious, and there is need for a more delicate 
administration by which the home and the school can 
better co-operate in this moralizing function. National, 
even human, society is itself still in the process of moral 
evolution, and this common pragmatic conviction of the 
evolution of the moral law must give the clew as to the 
moral measures the schools of any nation shall adopt. 
Thus only by building upon the child's endowment, 
racial, social, and individual, of instincts and symbolic 
cravings for objective ideals, and by idealizing the state 
as par excellence a moral institution, may the school find 
its fuller social justification. 

As Keatinge says: "If the ideas and ideals that are 
put forward by an educational system are purely tradi- 
tional and arbitrary, and very remote from the needs of 
every-day life, or if the attitude of mind and modes of 
thinking inculcated are at variance with the crude meth- 
ods by which men feel their way toward a comfortable 



EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 25 

income and matrimony; if the moral code which is 
taught is too far in advance of that in actual use, even 
though on abstract grounds it may be desirable, in other 
words, if it stands in little relation with the current 
practice, it will be a drawback to the individual to have 
come under the influence of the educational system, and 
biological forces will inevitably produce immunity to 
this knowledge or this attitude of mind or of feeling." 1 
Characteristic pragmatic philosophy ! 

Regarding the education of feelings as an important 
issue, the dangers in the incorrect education of the intel- 
lect are conceit, scepticism, cynicism, intolerance, and 
undue extension of the critical spirit, all to be found 
everywhere among the educated, and there is only one 
antidote for them. The dangers in the wrong educa- 
tion or in the neglect of the feelings are even more alarm- 
ing; languorous sensuousness and tumultuous explo- 
siveness, giants of the tribe; and here again there is an 
antidote, the proper education of them. "Unless moral 
training and the sense of social responsibility bulk as big 
as aesthetic training, unless, indeed, the two are merged 
into one, the training of the feelings on which so much 
stress has been laid may be disastrous." There exists in 
society a large amount of perverted feeling. Most of our 
communities have forgotten the dead knowledge acquired 
in school-days, and have no means of occupying them- 
selves creatively in the leisure hours. "It will be for the 
school of the future to lay at least as much stress on the 
arts of self-expression as on the acquisition of knowledge, 
and to insure that aesthetic feeling shall pervade the 
community." 1 

The very good reason why we do not specifically pro- 

1 M. W. Keatinge, "Studies in Education." (A. C. Black, Ltd., 
London.) 



26 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

vide for the education of human feelings and emotions in 
our general scheme of education is that we have no suffi- 
cient understanding of how to accomplish this desirable 
training. Can we measure, reduce to scale, evaluate, 
and direct by rule the more intimate and more critically 
important factors in education, such as, for example, our 
emotions, our wills, our characters, our sentiments and 
ideals, our convictions and beliefs, our temperaments 
and personalities ? If not, can we afford to neglect these 
factors in our school procedure? If we can educate 
them, what will be the effect of such educational treat- 
ment? 

Theories differ as to the role of the educator in the 
realm of feelings and emotions. Some feel that we shall 
cheapen and deaden intimate personal feelings by giving 
them school attention. Others think the intellect can 
be educated, but that feelings are by nature not amenable 
to training. Others think it would be well to have feeling 
sensibilities and emotional discernment trained, but that 
the school as an institution cannot ever hope to do this. 
Others again think this is a programme of the future, 
but that at present not enough is known to make possible 
a pedagogy of feeling. 

It is clear that we can in ourselves and in our pupils' 
mental lives distinguish roughly what we may call two 
worlds. One is a world of facts with which we can drill 
our students and exercise their memories and logical 
powers in different directions. Here our pupils will be 
busy under our direction in more or less impersonally de- 
scribing, explaining, and reorganizing the stress of infor- 
mation. The other world is the world of values, where 
our feelings and emotions, our impulses and ideals are 
exercised. In one world facts rightly reign supreme. 
In the other, personalities are the centre of interest. 



EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 27 

The teacher, if he be an artist, with delicate direction 
here and a sense of mastery, can make moments burn 
with meaning and become eternal. The cultivation of 
love of truth, love of right, and appreciation of the beau- 
tiful, is the choicest task of the educator. He must 
know more intimately and appreciate more critically his 
charges who are going through vital physical, mental, 
and spiritual changes which make or mar, tone up or 
discolor, sweeten or embitter their whole after-lives. 
The uncontrollable, inarticulate, but ceaselessly active 
undercurrent of passion and latent power is there — 
critical for the educator. Not only sanity, kindliness, 
and justice, but studied insight into the meaning and 
critical importance of these vital changes must be at 
command. One cannot any longer retain self-respect 
nor social, if he accepts his teaching work as merely the 
imparting of information. He is more and more in- 
sistently challenged to make men and women, and to 
study continually the intricate complexities of those 
processes he, by virtue of his position, must direct and 
define. 

It may be that in time the science of education may 
investigate this problem of educating the emotions. At 
present high school teachers, dealing with adolescents 
overwhelmed with the very richness and abundance of 
their own emotional experiences, cannot afford to neg- 
lect the responsibility of directing this phase of the life 
of their pupils. Obviously some subjects lend them- 
selves more clearly to this emotional demand than 
others. This should be clearly understood by all high 
school principals and teachers. If it were so understood 
we should no longer see English literature and geome- 
try, history and physics taught by practically the same 
methods, and no longer would all our examination ques- 



28 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

tions apparently be bent on testing the same sort of 
restricted range of mental powers. 

Somehow modern scientific and industrial realism in 
education, though succeeding in keeping alive our human 
passion for experimental inquiry and investigation of all 
aspects of nature and in satisfying our instinctive de- 
mand for participation in constructive workmanship and 
for conscious industrial service and practice, even in 
organization and leadership, still lacks a vital humanis- 
tic factor. There is one screw loose in our modernly 
educated boys and girls. Surely nature and the occu- 
pations of man, through science and rightly conceived 
vocational education, must be two of our instruments of 
democratic culture. As surely, however, must language 
in the form of literature, art, and music be basal to any 
superstructure designed for our modern public-school 
system. 

What we may call the new era in education means 
just this — that we are becoming concerned with the 
great variety of mental capacities and with the greater 
varieties of combinations of these traits found in our 
students. In classroom work and also in extra classroom 
activities of the school we are rapidly working out a 
high school system of administration and teaching which 
is reaching and directing the individualities of boys and 
girls, their emotions as well as their intellects. The 
elective system, systems of high school advisers, voca- 
tional guidance, avocational guidance, moral guidance, 
educational guidance, all such new and significant terms 
in high school administration but indicate how near this 
vital problem we are coming. 

"If at the end of an elaborate course of education our 
youths and maidens, as is usually the case, are unable 
to resist the appeal that is made to their worst impulses 



EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 29 

by certain state representations and literary produc- 
tions, the cause is to be sought in the absence of serious 
effort to cultivate in them an appreciation of what is 
best in musical and literary form." This English 
writer 1 attempts to show that "the cultivation of feel- 
ing is a desirable thing, and that its expression and 
modification through suitable channels are essential for 
well-ordered mental life," and that the " accepted chan- 
nels of aesthetic expression are of more than conventional 
value." William James used to say that all civilizations 
were more or less afraid of the cultivation of human 
feelings because of the certain dangers accompanying 
the exercise of them, even the Greeks being, in his view, 
too timid to give sufficient range to tap the real educa- 
tional resources inherent in the full play of our emo- 
tional activity. We do not know how to use and still 
safeguard our feeling life because we do not know how 
to socialize our feelings. Neither, according to Mr. 
Kea tinge, do we know how to insist upon strenuous 
effort in all aesthetic production or appreciation. If we 
could so make strong endeavor permeate the feeling 
complex we should avert the real danger of "softness 
and lack of control." "It is the lounger (in exercising 
his emotional life), not the worker, who is on the brink of 
the precipice." According to crudely made investiga- 
tions, aesthetic feeling has a negative correlation with 
most other desirable qualities and processes of the mind. 
How account for the present state of perverted feel- 
ing? Why do the strenuous high school boys and the 
most highly rated teachers and administrators refuse to 
take seriously the proposition that artistic expression 
and appreciation of art (including literature) are among 

*M. W. Keatinge, "Studies in Education." (A. & C. Black, 
Ltd., London, 1916.) (46) 



30 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

the things in life that really matter? Is it true that 
only the " feeble boys who have fallen out of line and 
who shirk sports, feebly cultivate the arts in seclusion 
under the guidance of specialist art and music masters 
who are not important members of the school staff"? 
Are we in great measure open to the criticism that Mr. 
Keatinge directs at the secondary schools of England? 
Are not his comments true of us that adult life of Amer- 
ica has as a rule no means of artistic expression or ap- 
preciation, is driven to futile pursuits for relaxation, is 
atrophying the higher feelings, and is therefore fonder 
of food and drink and possessed of a "morbid craving 
for rapid motion"? "Once youth is past there is no 
time to acquire the technic of the arts; foolish plea- 
sures are indulged in because the power to enjoy others 
is wanting, and we have the spectacle of a community 
that has forgotten most of the dead knowledge which 
it acquired in its school-days and has no means of occu- 
pying itself creatively in its leisure hours." "... Artis- 
tic feeling must be cultivated for the sake of the com- 
munity or with still wider reference"; it must be a 
"form of social service." There is no such thing as 
socializing the individual high school boy or girl unless 
his "feelings undergo the same process." 

There is perhaps too much talk of the moral value of 
the course of study, in the superficial sense that this is 
an element to be added as an accretion to the primary 
purpose of the subject of study in question. If a sub- 
ject has religious or moral value, it has it intrinsically, 
and genuine teaching will bring it out. The real ques- 
tion for the school is the practical one of whether we 
can hasten wisely the process of moralizing the pupils 
by a more differentiated curriculum, adding specific 
moral instruction. Ideally, the course of study should 



EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 31 

do everything for the child. In our actual situation, 
however, we have too few effective moral influences. 
Are we liable to bungle matters and deaden, rather than 
enliven, the moral sense by directly and officially recog- 
nizing and establishing a course in morals for our pub- 
lic schools? It is absurd to say this cannot be done. 
It has been done in thousands of good homes; there are 
conspicuous examples of its success in public schools. 
Non-theological moral instruction should be adapted, of 
course, to social needs. It is a question simply of the 
degree of seriousness, judiciousness, and liberality of 
the ranks of teachers and of educational leaders. As 
with art in our programme of studies, it may well be 
that we as a nation are not yet sufficiently eager for 
social moral insight to create a telling demand for 
teachers who can convey moral truths delicately and 
yet directly. Intellectualism, the easiest deduction 
from Herbartian philosophy, with us as with Germany, 
and Spencer's salvation through scientific fact alone, 
powerful with us as with France, have effectually, for 
too long, obscured some of the finer aspects of the edu- 
cative process. The so-called incidental culture of 
moral insight, as of art appreciation, is, in certain stages 
of development, a poor, spineless policy. 

We are now striving to consider our relation to this 
actual social world of ours, as honestly and with as 
much faith and spirit as we have learned to look upon 
inanimate nature. Before we, refining the spirit of 
Rousseau, learned to love nature as she is, to love her 
stupidity, her unresponsiveness, her massiveness, her 
mysterious air, her hidden and never more than half- 
revealed meaning — until this time we placed our educa- 
tional hopes in mysterious processes, in forced faiths. 
Naturalism was a great step toward actuality under 



32 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

every-day guise. It meant that educators might use 
some of the resources of every-day environment. 

But morality in a democracy is a coat of many colors 
and nature is not all of environment; the human element 
must be added. The child must be inducted into social 
life by some sort of reproduced social activity. It is here 
that the school can best utilize its corporate life to pro- 
mote civic loyalty and virtue, individual independence 
and co-operation. This new emphasis should be upon 
the constructive policy of making educational use of all 
school exercises of classroom and of playground — every 
incident of school life — that they may present a work- 
ing contact with the average affairs of every-day life. 
All these naturalized school attitudes are full of moral 
possibilities. The school must contrive with pointed 
and organized effort to make these moral situations 
seem natural and innate, not arbitrary, literal, exter- 
nally imposed, and hence artificial. Self-discipline, and 
hence school discipline, consists in so contriving that 
all revelations of life situations where moral forces are 
at work shall be such that pupils gradually and nat- 
urally acquire the attitude of looking upon moral forces 
as just as real and as inexorable as all other of nature's 
forces are real and inexorable. 

From this point, then, the school is primarily an insti- 
tution for reproducing the forces and environment of 
typical communities and for gradually developing in 
accord with this controlled social school atmosphere the 
working structures of individualities found in the pupils. 
This is democracy. This is the public school's mission, 
morally and aesthetically. An understanding of modern 
complex social and industrial environment, with hy- 
gienic insight, idealized, will surely largely constitute 
our moral equipment. Higher sanctions than these, our 



EDUCATION FOR THE NEW DEMOCRACY 33 

faith in the conservation and even evolution of life's 
deeper values, will in due course be revealed in this vast 
social process whose central moving force should be the 
people's schools. 



PARTY PLATFORMS IN EDUCATION 1 

We will suppose the events which I am to describe to 
have taken place during the summer and fall of 1920: 

More and more had European and Far-Eastern peo- 
ples lined themselves up and wasted themselves in the 
gigantic world struggle of profound and opposite princi- 
ples of philosophy, social justice, economic interests, 
political organization, and individual right. More and 
more serious and reflective and awed had American peo- 
ples become as the sharply opposing views of life bat- 
tled on with the hopeless automatic common soldiers of 
the trenches as their mechanical instruments of war. 

Americans — even the ranks of teachers — began to 
recognize the profoundly incompatible principles which, 
underneath the immediately human aspect of the war, 

1 In the fall of 191 5 Mr. Johnston presented the following chapter 
as a lecture before his class in high school administration at the Uni- 
versity of Illinois. It came as the result of a previous class discus- 
sion on the necessity of a teacher having a philosophy of education, 
in which discussion Mr. Johnston took the attitude that, desirable 
and necessary as it was to have a philosophy, the vast majority of 
men and women in the teaching ranks lack the required training 
that would enable them to become independent thinkers. While 
they might desire a consistent philosophy of education and strive 
to attain one, for many this would result only in a sort of eclecticism. 
At best, as he said, it would be but a mixture of the principal tenets 
of the opposing camps washed over with a sort of practical common 
sense that would modify and neutralize both. Consequently, in his 
characteristic whimsical way he developed and enlarged his idea, 
and at a subsequent meeting of the class presented this chapter in 
a spirit of half-seriousness. Later the specific "Planks" of his 
"Educational Party Platforms" appeared from time to time as 
editorials in the Journal of Educational Administration and Super- 
vision. 

34 



PARTY PLATFORMS IN EDUCATION 35 

were bidding for our homage, our approval, our loyalty. 
We all, even teachers, began to see clearly in the present 
world situation a spectacle of the breakdown of national- 
ism as the welding philosophy of politics of races or of 
cultures. We began to see on this vast scale that we 
were not ourselves involved in this actual demonstra- 
tion of failure of educational ideals for any virtue of our 
own, but merely by our accidental geographical posi- 
tion. Seeing more clearly this real issue underneath 
the world's awful but indeterminate brute appeal to 
force, we, after six years of paralyzed indecision, had 
set about a radical reconstruction of our thoughts on 
life, politics, philosophy, and education. 

The changes in controlling ideals and actual practices 
in private individual and family life, or in the philosophy 
of our new thought leaders, I shall not recount. The 
momentous and revolutionary changes in the whole 
political world were too profound for us to note in pass- 
ing. To the educational changes wrought in this crisis 
which we here project and dare to anticipate we may 
devote this discussion. 

The army of seven hundred thousand teachers became 
in this period profoundly dissatisfied with their own mud- 
dling along, their own customary indifferentism in merely 
patching up their frail little machinery of classroom man- 
agement, literal discipline, and antiquated ideas and 
problems of literal pedagogy. Teachers, formerly satis- 
fied to be harmless, merely "nice," respectable, prim, 
obedient to convention and to benevolent or blustery au- 
tocratic administrators, had suddenly awakened to a full 
self-consciousness of their power. With this they had 
become painfully conscious of their lack of an impelling 
ideal. They began everywhere to demand such an ideal 
— to agonize in thought to make this ideal articulate — 



36 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

to erect it into a flag standard around which in their 
deepest loyalty and devotion they could rally, for which 
they could put up their spiritual fight. It was their cry 
in the wilderness. 

More in detail the teachers became tired of the teach- 
ers' meetings of the old sort. They were surfeited with 
the amazing and intricate technic done for them in the 
elaborate made-to-order lesson plans of school man- 
agement books and teachers, they were distrustful of 
ready-made recipes for effective good school behavior, 
they began to suspect the mental nutriment in much of 
the peptonized subject-matter in their schematic and 
"full-of-directions" text-books. Likewise they had be- 
come disillusioned as to the immaculately detached clois- 
teral scholarship ideal erected for their worship by col- 
lege professors. They had begun to feel the restrictions 
involved in the "reading-circle" prescriptions. They 
had become decidedly restive regarding their civic os- 
tracism. They wished to be real citizens. They had 
evolved to the stage where they were dissatisfied with 
the former characteristic schoolroom function of "dis- 
ciplining children's minds." They had discarded this 
doctrine of repression. Another symptom of this pow- 
erful awakened teacher mind was a dignified but clearly 
settled determination gradually to replace all forms of 
autocratic internal school government, even when be- 
nevolent, by a form of conscious co-operative demo- 
cratic regulation of school affairs, wherein all con- 
cerned in some measure participated. More profound 
were two other symptoms. Teachers in this new seri- 
ous, spiritual frame of mind had become aware not only 
of the fact that the education they were giving had been 
too intellectualistic, literal, and externally superimposed, 
and that it lacked the social element, but also that they 



PARTY PLATFORMS IN EDUCATION 37 

at last saw the warped emotionalism which school exer- 
cises were failing to modify and to develop. Profes- 
sionally, also, they had, after their first enthusiasm had 
been spent, begun to recoil against the then current and 
wide-spread and popular as well as "scientific" notion 
of rating a teacher's work purely and only by quantita- 
tive rankings. They had in this 1920th year thoroughly 
awakened to the actual oversight of profoundly spiritual 
elements. They saw they had never followed a philoso- 
phy of education, but had merely accepted from time to 
time the temporary leadership of a writer, a speaker, a 
book, an article, a magazine, a friend, or even an im- 
pulse. 

It fortunately happened at this supremely critical 
period of American politics and education that both 
political leaders and educational leaders knew some- 
thing of Aristotle and his lofty conceptions of politics 
and education. 

It was decided in this month of June, 1920, to co- 
ordinate in our nation our political and our educational 
state activities. This meant the purification of both. 
Among other things, it meant that education, too, might 
in its new and important position in the state adopt 
one political device — the party platform. So we had on 
this momentous occasion the spectacle in education as 
well as in politics of divisions into parties with plat- 
forms advocating in all their planks fundamentally dif- 
ferent positions, different methods, and different aims in 
all current distinguishable problems confronting actual 
teachers. 

Our attention, however, had been of late frequently 
called to the stage of evolution of our political parties 
into divisions distinguishable and characterizable in 
terms of different basic principles of government — and 



38 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

of the more subtle but also more determining differences 
in political temperament. Nothing else ever so effec- 
tively elevated politics and advanced us toward democ- 
racy. 

Likewise party platforms in education emerged from 
the chaotic ferment of plausible but somehow scarcely 
profound discussions in our current educational litera- 
ture. Teachers began to ask: Are there fundamental 
conceptions of education which now divide the modern 
moulders of educational opinion ? Are there inarticulate 
party platforms to which the one or the other of us 
may adhere? Are the ranks of teachers able to adhere 
to a platform of principles, an educational philosophy, 
and resist the impulse to follow this or that speaker, 
this or that article, this or that reading-circle book? 
Can they prefer and can they understand the more fun- 
damental questions of educational philosophy, disen- 
tangled from the particular personal setting in which 
some speaker or writer may present or distort them? 

There were at last unmistakable evidences that we 
had approached an idealistic interpretation of educa- 
tion. All educators and teachers began to ask: Shall we 
in types of teachers, schools, curriculums, methods, con- 
tinue to aim at producing types of men and women, 
making all alike, at advancing commerce and industry, 
and even in exalting the state and preserving tradition; 
or shall we shift the emphasis in all respects noted above 
and recognize that education must first of all find its 
goal in the perfection of the individual citizens, in the 
broad personality-culture, self-sufficiency, and indepen- 
dent-mindedness of all ? These questions were involved 
questions. We saw we should not solve them and should 
not decide them by following this or that personal lead- 
ership, nor this or that foreign nation. We saw that 



PARTY PLATFORMS IN EDUCATION 39 

until we can all think and logically follow a platform of 
principles we shall continue to be ineffective, merely 
playthings of the vast American school machinery. 

Can we, the slogan went, in co-operation strive effec- 
tively for the latter goal, and at the same time combine 
with this fundamental philosophy of the dominant aim 
of education also the elements of a high cosmopolitanism 
and an ineradicable sense of nationality — a sense of 
nationality which is not offensively assertive nor too 
self-conscious. 

It had at last, to our consternation, become clear that 
we were not one nation. Our differences in race, reli- 
gion, language, traditions of subtle scales of emotional 
values, attitudes toward democratic government even, 
and, even more vital, our senses of what should be our 
common responsibilities — all these differences aggra- 
vated by our unregulated and unorganized industries — 
had created a keen sense among many educational 
thinkers and teachers of the urgent need for some more 
effective process and agency to genuinely nationalize us. 
Some believe in the ultimate nationalization of our tra- 
ditional academic common school curriculum, with cer- 
tain elements and emphasis added which would imply 
service to the state. Others would nationalize a sort of 
vocationalized school curriculum with its humanizing 
aim of making labor universally respected and respect- 
able. There are still others who would like for a nation 
somehow to begin upon a national scale a new form of 
education — universal military education, in such a demo- 
cratic way that no one class of citizens can ever create 
an officer class. 

These were but illustrations of many similar made-to- 
order suggestions which had caught most of us off our 
guard because we had provided no steering platform 



40 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

of educational principles upon which to organize our- 
selves. It is safe to say that neither of our opposing 
party platforms will be unassailable. They will, how- 
ever, indicate the broad lines of division as to educa- 
tional values, so that we may in the spirit of Dewey's 
"experimental" national philosophy cast in our lot with 
one or the other camp of workers and thinkers, and get 
the enormous benefit of a high-grade sort of professional 
co-operation and the spiritual inspiration without which 
we can only return to our routine, never make a new 
nation — without which, indeed, we can never again 
attain even self-respect. 

A national convention of teachers was called. It 
convened, twenty-five thousand strong, picked delegates 
of the seven hundred thousand in the ranks. Heated 
and persistent discussions and vigorous personal solu- 
tions of vexed and various educational problems con- 
sumed three days. It suddenly dawned upon the chair- 
man of the convention that there was a fairly clear line 
of cleavage among the delegates. He adjourned the 
convention so that, in the meantime, a strong steering 
commission might draw up, fairly and justly, the typi- 
cal attitudes of the two opposing camps in the teaching 
body, and present in clear, concise language these two 
educational platforms to the representative assembly for 
whatever sort of action they seemed to require. All 
sides were animated with unquestionable patriotic and 
humanitarian motives. 

The convention was to vote upon and thus spiritually 
to sanction, but not to coerce, a national trial for a 
period of four years of the one or the other platform. 

Never before had education enjoyed such wholesome, 
such critical, and such wide publicity. The conven- 
tion, the commission, the speakers, even the planks in 



PARTY PLATFORMS IN EDUCATION 41 

the different platforms, were discussed in the entire press 
of the country. Every local paper enriched educational 
literature by its unique explanations and local applica- 
tions of the doctrines. No national event had ever 
before so effectively educated a nation. Never since 
Plato's time had educational issues so gripped the 
national mind. 

The convention assembled on this last day's session 
to hear the two platforms of educational principles ex- 
plained fully. No delegate was absent. Almost all had 
heard from an interested and intelligent home constitu- 
ency. All were casting the most critical vote of their 
lives, and they knew it. All were awed by the import 
of their collective action; all were inspired. 

The two parties had agreed to style themselves Ab- 
solutists and Experimentalists. Their respective plat- 
forms read as follows: 

The Junior High School Movement 
Absolutists. 

We go on record as opposed to the so-called "re- 
organization," or rearrangement, of the grades of the 
public-school system. It should, indeed, rather be 
called the "mutilation" of the great American common 
school. The present system represents the pooled edu- 
cational experience of all our common-school develop- 
ment and is, in the absence of proof to the contrary, 
likely to be better than any new-fangled arrangement 
devised by theoretical "experts." We wish to let our 
slow but undeniable developments in public education 
proceed unjarred by such sudden and violent readjust- 
ments and to see internal improvements refined and 
teachers and teaching bettered rather than witness a 
wholesale but superficial tinkering with merely admin- 



42 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

istrative externals under the guise of educational reform. 
If the junior high school is started and sanctioned by 
our great and conservative party it might spread widely. 
In such case many old superintendents who cannot do 
modern curriculum thinking will experience painful 
jolts, and some will even lose their jobs. It is certain, 
too, in our attitude of opposition we may count upon 
some school patrons, some school-teachers, and some 
school-board members to object. A further considera- 
tion which makes ours a "safe" position is that many 
proponents of the new scheme are overenthusiastic, and 
hence will make many easily assailable statements and 
claims. 

Experimentalists. 

We believe in "reorganization" just because, partly, 
it has been one of the wide-spread and vigorous develop- 
ments of which we are now merely becoming aware. It 
has come out of the very loins of our progressive school 
experimenters — those who do our constructive "curricu- 
lum thinking." It represents in its various types the 
very sort of wholesome administrative experimentalism 
in educational practice for which our party stands. We 
also believe in it because practically none who have 
adopted it have found reason to abandon it. This 
plank in our platform implies decisive attitudes regard- 
ing other sound reforms and new, practical steps looking 
toward more design in our school administration, espe- 
cially in the administration of the curriculum. 

Curriculum Differentiation 
Absolutists. 

The Absolutists oppose as a school policy curriculum 
differentiation as applicable below the ioth grade, and 



PARTY PLATFORMS IN EDUCATION 43 

think of it as a wilful segregation of 7th, 8th, and 9th 
grade boys and girls in order to subject them forcibly to 
different and alienating trainings, to keep them spatially 
apart during the operation of reciting, to make them un- 
like for the mere sake of unlikeness, and to allow privi- 
leges to some in the form of extra work, systematic 
opportunity for different rates of progress by groups, 
special coveted skills where feasible, and favorable condi- 
tions for the culture of personalities by whatever means 
these personalities may be affected (linguistic, clerical, 
domestic, manual, prevocational, or otherwise). These 
Absolutists are temperamentally suspicious of any en- 
croachments upon the historic preserves of the now ideal- 
ized elementary school. 

In the Introduction to the Fourteenth Yearbook of the 
National Society (concurred in presumably by all the 
well-known contributors) we read about the uniform 
process which must be made universal — nationalized — 
of providing in an elementary school the knowledges, 
ideals, and habits as well as skills in such a way that 
they can become the common property of all Ameri- 
cans. This accepted function of the elementary school 
is to secure an aggressive democratic society, with mem- 
bers who can use rightly and profitably not only work 
hours but leisure hours, who are not only self-supporting 
and self-directing, but who have also co-operative ca- 
pacity and the abilities of leadership. 

Connect with this ideal, say the Absolutists, the nat- 
ural assumption that the items of content (facts and 
concepts) of systematic text-book knowledge are, with 
the tools of education, the only means at hand for 
making it possible for democratic citizens to talk sym- 
pathetically together and contribute to the progressive 
evolution of our democratic society, and we have an in- 



44 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

controvertible argument for the paramount importance 
of the extended-upward single curriculum. Clearly 
the business of democracy is to set at once about the 
urgent work of determining once for all these absolute 
essentials, fixing them rigidly and permanently in the 
core of our non-differentiated but extended elementary- 
school curriculum, and then to find by the vast national 
experiment thus inaugurated the way to make these 
little citizens take our scientific common pabulum in 
the most acquiescent manner consistent with intellec- 
tualistic digestion and with the utmost of precision as 
regards accuracy and regularity of swallowing. This 
daring dream of national uniformity enables us to pic- 
ture more easily the block universe, and to appreciate 
the literal and easiest interpretation of the melting-pot 
doctrine. It tends to remind us forcibly that the amaz- 
ing belief in content is still widely current. It has 
taken on the new function of making for aggressive 
democracy and producing ideals. 

Experimentalists. 

The Experimentalists agree with all the high and well- 
expressed purposes of American democracy noted above. 
What they refuse to adopt as the necessary means to 
accomplish this democratic goal is just this oversys- 
tematized and unadaptable common fund of mere items 
of information. It is, they think, the old American 
text-book uniformity philosophy of a curriculum — a 
fool-proof curriculum — the educational philosopher's 
stone. They suspect the thin veneer of such education 
for all alike, whether they are suited for it or not, espe- 
cially for the years thirteen to fifteen, when conscious 
development of trained individuality can and should be 
uppermost. 



PARTY PLATFORMS IN EDUCATION 45 

Vocational Education 
Absolutists. 

The makers of our constitution and the organizers of 
our original common-school system and curriculum and 
our historic Committee of Ten (1893) f° r high schools 
did not anticipate the present dangerous propaganda for 
vocational education in the people's schools. Their 
conception of education fortunately did not embrace 
this element. Indeed, from this fact and from our own 
reasoning in the field of educational theory we feel that, 
after all, the need for it is largely fictitious and the 
understanding of what is wanted wholly vague; in short, 
that the demand is hatched up by the " interests," and 
that the specific proposals to furnish it are psychologi- 
cally as well as socially unsound. In short, we depre- 
cate the movement, discredit the underlying philosophy, 
and reiterate our belief in the adequacy of the present 
ingredients of our hitherto-respected and still respecta- 
ble curriculum. 

Experimentalists. 

In the present stage of the whole developing but still 
perplexing question we adhere to and announce as our 
platform standards the following two clear principles of 
vocational education: 

First: That despite any ideal theory of an ultimate 
type of common education for a democracy we stand 
firmly committed to the fundamental principle of always 
adjusting our educational offerings to an undeniable and 
unescapable present and industrial situation, if this situa- 
tion is to exist throughout the lifetime of the individuals 
directly concerned. Second: We also announce the prin- 
ciple of trying to reach a social industrial and educa- 



46 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

tional level where we can educate not to adjustment but 
to alter and even to transform our whole social and indus- 
trial situation. 

Standards for American High Schools 
Absolutists. 

We believe in the American high school as a selective 
institution. We believe in accepting the standards of 
scholarly thoroughness and of rigor in exclusively aca- 
demic exercises as maintained by the German gymna- 
sium. We accept such standards, conscious that this 
policy will exclude large numbers from the high school. 

Experimentalists. 

We believe that the American high school as a non- 
selective democratic institution cannot operate exclu- 
sively on a scholastic basis for entrance nor for progres- 
sive achievement of its heterogeneous groups of pupils; 
but that differing standards for both entrance and for 
persistence in school must be worked out in such a way 
that no pupil sufficiently mature will have to be vir- 
tually forced out because of the lack of suitable educa- 
tional opportunity being provided him. 

High School Entrance Requirements 
Absolutists. 

We believe in a strict adherence to the rule that the 
satisfactory completion of 8th grade academic work be 
the only method of admission to our high schools. 

Experimentalists. 

In our reorganized system of six-year elementary, 
three-year junior high school, three-year senior high 
school, we believe in placing no artificial barriers to 



PARTY PLATFORMS IN EDUCATION 47 

prevent escape from elementary schools, nor from en- 
trance to the needed sort of work in the differentiated 
curriculums of the junior high school. The pupil's need 
of some one of our different kinds of junior or senior 
schemes of high school training — not quality nor quan- 
tity of academic work where maturity is assured — shall 
always be the primary test. The proper administrative 
flexibility here and educational judgment can provide a 
more generous and a more just as well as an equally 
high standard of school work, differing in kind as the 
qualities, maturities, and social requirements of the 
pupils concerned differ. 

Prescribed Units in High School Work 
Absolutists. 

We believe in the common prescriptions of the stand- 
ard traditional units of three years English or four, two 
or three mathematics, three or four Latin, one year 
ancient history (ancient to insure sufficient historicity), 
and one year of science (logically organized into a re- 
spectable Science); and we approve a limitation upon 
the amount of vocational work which may be offered. 
(This vocational work must be formal and "curricu- 
larized.") 

Experimentalists. 

Believing in the partial or clean-cut differentiation of 
junior and senior high school curriculums we indorse 
the movement to shift the emphasis and the content of 
the units to be universally required from the traditional 
ones which now stand upon the shaky and hazy ground 
of formal discipline and foreign culture (instrumental 
only in function, also), and to place our great emphasis 
upon the content elements of natural science and social 



48 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

science which respectively reveal the world we live in 
and the world where operate the laws and forms of our 
own lives. We should then have as prescribed units 
(with a different definition of units) three English, two 
social science, two natural science, and possibly two of 
reorganized mathematics. 

Internal Government of Schools 
Absolutists. 

We believe in the autocratic management of a school. 
We believe that order, precision, obedience, quiet, a 
pupil-body sense of a higher directing power should per- 
meate all well-governed schools. We therefore depre- 
cate all tendency to break up this time-honored custom 
of personal authority, by any so-called constitution and 
distribution of governmental functions to the various 
members and organizations within the school life itself. 
The school is not a miniature state or society, but an 
instrument devised for instrumental purposes of educating 
boys and girls. Designated administrative officers must 
rule all educational, political, and administrative mat- 
ters, and the teachers, always subject to this higher 
authority, may rule likewise in classrooms. The func- 
tion of pupils is to be ruled and taught. Their time will 
come later for using their authority over others, just as 
the repressed son's time comes when he can impose his will 
upon his formerly dictatorial father — or the freshman's 
time comes when he can assume the sophomoric role. 

Experimentalists. 

We believe in the principle of democratic internal 
school government, especially in the high school, which 
ideal looks constructively toward finding means for the 
participation of all and for the co-operative practice of 



PARTY PLATFORMS IN EDUCATION 49 

all in self-government. We do not believe in school 
board or superintendent or principal or teacher or stu- 
dent government; but we do believe that a persistent 
co-operative effort, long continued, may evolve a plan 
whereby all concerned may in the proper degree par- 
ticipate in and get practice and acquire ability in the 
vital matter of co-operative living, of making the whole 
school itself literally run well. We are educating for 
democracy. The school must furnish some safe prac- 
tice in democratic living. This must be the definite aim 
of social administration, and in some measure this ex- 
periment should be hazarded in all schools, even at the 
cost of some initial confusion and some temporary dis- 
order and dissatisfaction. 

The Doctrine of Interest and Effort 
Absolutists. 

Work, efficiency, effort is the salvation of our schools 
as of our nation. We believe that the laissez-faire indi- 
vidualism of our American schools has gone too far, 
that our students regularly shirk work, and that teach- 
ers have got in the habit of accepting this slipshod per- 
formance. We believe that only conscious, habitual 
submission to and conscious continuous practice in tasks 
themselves requiring unpleasant effort will produce de- 
sirable mental results. We frankly proclaim the "doc- 
trine of pain/' and almost, if not quite, believe that a 
thing is educational because it is unpleasant or painful, 
and that this is the prospect for which we should harden 
children while we have them in school. 

Experimentalists. 

We believe that there has been a false antagonism set 
up between what interests and what requires effort, and 



50 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

a false description given of what the feeling of effort is. 
Our opponents have confused the immediately diverting 
and purely sensuously pleasant with the far different 
thing, the deeply and personally satisfying — an ideal as 
old as Aristotle. Consequently we believe in the adop- 
tion of the doctrine of self-activity, self-motivation — 
all with the teachers' co-operating understanding direc- 
tion. This is a programme and platform of effort- work 
(or action) surely, but not one of Buddhistic acquies- 
cence in mere work for work's sake. Our work-action 
doctrine is both more productive of efforts which con- 
tinue and accomplish, and of interests which develop, 
endure, and stimulate. We renounce the literal and 
cynical toil-and-taskmaster conception of the nature of 
the educative process, although recognizing that under 
the necessarily partly artificial conditions of much school 
work at present our goal for working conditions and 
for motives is far from being achieved. 



Educational Method 
Absolutists. 

We believe that even in the elementary school the 
principle of organization and presentation of material 
to children should be logical, and that it is a wholesome 
educational doctrine to subordinate wherever possible 
the immediate interests and natural spontaneity of chil- 
dren to the more ultimate and more purely intellectual 
goal of clarity, definiteness, and the gradually imper- 
sonal comprehension of facts and relations. We believe 
that in the skilful pedagogical presentation and applica- 
tion by teachers this necessarily external but carefully 
prearranged material of sense and ideas will (partly 
subconsciously) work for the best, educationally, in the 



PARTY PLATFORMS IN EDUCATION 51 

child's mental growth — even though it may seem to 
them "natural" at the time. In the main we have faith 
still in the Herbartian principles of association of ideas 
and in the school's past loyalty in practice to those prin- 
ciples. We regard it as deplorable to modify, reduce, 
or dilute this method of logical organization, except 
where temporarily it is necessary to make certain ac- 
commodations to the child's immaturity or stupidity. 
In general, the things to be taught largely determine 
our method. 

Experimentalists. 

We believe, wherever possible, in all grades teachers 
should reject the dictation of prearranged subject- 
matter and accept as the very foundation-stones of edu- 
cational method the principle of utilizing to the full the 
naturally inherited possibilities of the learning processes, 
rooted in the instinctive and impulsive attitudes and 
activities of children and of youth; and — utilizing these 
as far as is practical — reproduce as nearly as possible on 
the learner's plane the typical constructive social doings 
of the outside world. 

We believe this wave of educational reconstruction 
has been going on steadily for years, that it is gaining in 
scope and momentum, and that in both elementary and 
secondary schools it is the source of our present revival 
of interest in more vital new subjects and in more vital 
aspects of traditional subjects; and we furthermore be- 
lieve that elaborate existing schemes of teaching built 
largely on study of subject-matter are failing to produce 
desired results, and, indeed, always tend to result in 
mental sterility, in dislike of school, in paralysis of in- 
terests, and in incapacity for later active participation 
in the usual activities of wholesome constructive living. 



52 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

School Discipline 
Absolutists. 

We believe that systematic submission to outside 
authority, kind and gentle, possibly, but, above all, 
firm and judicious, is a fundamental need of childhood 
and youth, and that pupils should always in school live 
under such a regime, sense the consequent order in all 
things, acquire willingness and skill in obedience, and 
that they should not be subjected to the dangers and 
the confusion of self -direction. They must lean upon 
the teacher's will. We believe that the school should 
not suffer the wastage otherwise due to this inevitable 
floundering of young pupils incident to all their attempts 
to acquire a code of self -discipline with self -direction. 

The school is primarily a disciplining institution — in 
morals as in intellect — and not a place for individuals to 
go through the farce of practising their individualities. 
Pupils need rather, above everything else, to practise 
unpleasant effort to cultivate the capacity to endure 
drudgery — to become reconciled to hard, uncoaxed, 
uncomplimented work. The colt must be "broken," 
the law of its life is work, labor; so must be the child, 
the law of its life is to work under authority. We be- 
lieve in Doctor Emerson E. White's Seven School Vir- 
tues, and that the school's procedure is to "overlay" 
with these the primitive and non-educable impulses and 
activities of children. 

Experimentalists. 

We believe that the characteristic, direct and more or 
less literal school emphasis upon repressive discipline, 
external direction of will, and submissive obedience to 
teacher's orders or to traditional conceptions of an 



PARTY PLATFORMS IN EDUCATION 53 

education superimposed upon children's natures should 
be largely but gradually replaced by a different sort of 
emphasis. This new emphasis should be upon the con- 
structive rather than upon the destructive policy of 
making educational use of all school exercises of class- 
room and of playground — every incident of school life — 
that they may present a working contact with the 
average affairs of e very-day life. All of these natu- 
ralized school attitudes are full of moral possibilities. 
The school must contrive with pointed and organized 
effort to make these moral situations seem natural and 
innate, not arbitrary, literal, externally imposed, and 
hence artificial. Self-discipline, and hence school disci- 
pline, consists in so contriving that all revelations of 
life situations where moral forces are at work shall be 
such that pupils gradually and naturally acquire the 
attitude of looking upon moral forces as just as real and 
as inexorable as all other of nature's forces are real and 
inexorable. 

From the point, then, of school discipline the school is 
primarily an institution for reproducing the forces and 
environment of typical communities, and for gradually 
developing in accord with this controlled social school 
atmosphere the working structures of individualities 
found in the pupils. As C. E. Rugh has pointed out, 
the incrusted school tradition of inculcating the Seven 
School Virtues is not only insufficient but is actually 
misleading. All these virtues can be used by a success- 
ful bank robber in a single robbery. The public-school 
pupil comes not primarily to learn but to practise vir- 
tue, not to be " overlaid" with a moral veneer, however 
solidly, but to evolve, through the modern school's re- 
production of life's very acts of choice and of self- 
control in various intercourse with his fellows, that fun- 



54 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

damental consciousness of active workable Tightness 
which we call character. 

Social Recitation in High School 
Absolutists. 

We view with concern and look askance at the numer- 
ous efforts to organize the traditional class-meeting into 
what is known as the social recitation. The direct 
smooth tenor of the logical development of topics — 
even when the student does not know what it all is 
about — is a wholesome demonstration of education, and 
always should characterize school instruction. In the 
new and overrated social recitation this smoothness in 
technic of the logical teacher is endangered, students 
lose respect for the teacher's ability, and become too 
much interested in one point to go ahead according to 
the prearranged scheme. Often the possibility of "cov- 
ering the course" is lessened, and in addition it is more 
difficult to administer final written examinations, to 
give definite marks, and to keep order by maintaining 
school silence. We deplore the tendency, also, because 
we have already classified our lessons as drill lessons, 
appreciation ones, thought ones {sic), question-and- 
answer ones, developmental ones, etc., and this new 
type overlaps, and simply does not classify. 

Experimentalists. 

We heartily indorse the numerous and increasing 
instances of varying the traditional type of school reci- 
tation, particularly that of so organizing the class mem- 
bership that all feel a larger measure of corporate respon- 
sibility for the meeting. We believe that this tends to 
naturalize and to intensify the educative process, that 
more pupils participate, and that the character of their 



PARTY PLATFORMS IN EDUCATION 55 

participation is better; in short, that their zest for con- 
tributing from all sources is enhanced. We believe that 
here we have a better opportunity for teachers' ingenu- 
ity, and that we tap new sources of educational material 
— and, best of all, in the upper grades and in the high 
school, that we thus afford better school adaptations to 
the psychological and social natures and to the other 
interests of adolescents in particular. 

Directed or Supervised Study 
Absolutists. 

We deplore the soft pedagogy which bolsters up the 
present propaganda for so-called supervised study. 
This is but another dangerous symptom in our " body- 
educational." It merely means that we take another 
step in the pampering of wishy-washy, weak-willed, 
lazy students. It means a discouragement to work. It 
means that we tie them up by apron-strings, and never 
let them be thrown upon their haunches by genuine 
intellectual obstacles. It adds, as useless luxuries do, 
extra expense to our instructional budget, and develops 
in our teachers the attitude of a soft sentimentalism 
which is antagonistic to rigorous drill and honest, severe 
quizzing. It spares the intellectual rod merely to spoil 
the child's intellect. 

Experimentalists. . 

We sanction and propose to further the development 
of systems of directed or supervised study. We believe 
that much of traditional school work has spent itself on 
the so-called operation of reciting, and too little upon 
the real educational problem of the economic use of 
mental processes. Under this old regime we believe 
the mental wastage of pupils in matters of spontaneous 



56 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

curiosity, problem-solving motives, and aesthetic and 
other interests has been appalling. We recognize in the 
new movement to modify the daily schedule, the class 
period, the character of mental exercise in the class- 
meeting, the co-operative relation and intimacy of 
teacher and pupil, one of the refreshing innovations in 
educational practice which is possible only for educa- 
tion in a democracy such as the United States, and in 
school systems not tied down by conservatism, by 
bureaucratic control, and a whole-hog-or-none" proce- 
dure such as in European systems. The automatics or 
mechanics of education are having quite enough empha- 
sis at present. We need the influence of a profounder 
philosophy upon our school problems. While, there- 
fore, we look with favor upon the many and ingenious 
devices for administration of supervised study, we hope 
that these devices may not become confused with the 
more fundamental significance of the movement, which 
means, pedagogically, a spiritual reform in the educa- 
tive process itself. 



Educational Guidance 
Absolutists. 

We look with suspicion on the tendency among the 
experimentally minded and rash school administrators 
to organize elaborate advisory systems, to lavish extra 
time upon pupils in serving them gratuitous advice and 
guidance in matters too intimate, too remote from aca- 
demic school work, and too vital to be shouldered off on 
school-teachers. We regard this peering into individual 
traits of youngsters, into family conditions, into per- 
sonal aspirations, as into vocational and other future in- 
tentions, as altogether irrelevant to our honored and 



PARTY PLATFORMS IN EDUCATION 57 

easily defined pedagogical tasks. We say: "Let this all 
be incidental. Don't create here other experts as coun- 
sellors, do not project elaborate local surveys, nor wake 
up the safely sleeping and measurably satisfied commu- 
nity to such possibilities of extracting more service from 
our poorly paid teachers." 

Experimentalists . 

We approve the extending concept of education which 
finds exemplification in the school systems of Boston, 
Cincinnati, Grand Rapids, Salt Lake City, DeKalb, and 
hosts of other progressive cities in their attempts to dis- 
cover, individualize, group, advise, provide pertinent 
educational facilities and information for, and follow 
into vocational and other careers the pupils of the pub- 
lic schools. We applaud the attitude of the teachers in 
thus liberally — even gratuitously — offering a more pro- 
foundly human service to their pupils, and we expect the 
already large proportions of the movement to expand at 
an increasing rate until the ideal system becomes regu- 
larly incorporated in the procedure of all well-regulated 
standardized school systems. 

Military Training in High Schools 
Absolutists. 

Military training is entirely consistent with our con- 
ception of secondary education. Drill classes in mili- 
tary tactics and in mass exercises will discipline the 
high school boys. It doesn't particularly matter that 
the sort of military education we can introduce (consid- 
ering our source of teachers and our school facilities) 
will not be either a preparation for the real work of the 
modern soldier or a modern employee in industry. 
Neither is our Latin nor our history (as at present organ- 



58 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

ized and taught) a preparation for real life, in the sense 
that in the daily mental exercises of these classes these 
subjects smack of reality to the boys who are sub- 
jected to them. In all types of drill exercises — mili- 
tary drilling, conjugating, or dating political and mili- 
tary events — pupils are unconsciously affected, so that 
later they will fit into any national regime which our 
national leaders may carry through. Like our system- 
atic and carefully prearranged scientific laboratory ex- 
periments in high school, these military exercises will 
help greatly to "routinize" both the school and the in- 
dividual. It doesn't matter if setting-up drill, practice 
in manual of arms, drilling in marching on level sur- 
faces, and practising battalion movements on a smooth 
ground and for parade purposes are dull and boring and 
unreal for high school boys. It doesn't matter, precisely 
as it doesn't matter in the usual Latin and traditional 
mathematics courses if the development (bodily or men- 
tal, as the case may be) resulting is uneven, not sym- 
metrical and actually harmful physically. It is disci- 
pline; it is obedience, prompt and unquestioning; it is 
mass formation; it is uniformity; it is authoritative; and 
finally it is anti-individualistic, thoroughly in keeping 
with all else in our strictly non-differentiated high school 
curriculum. 

Experimentalists. 

The real work of a modern soldier or of a modern pro- 
fessional, commercial, or industrial man requires and de- 
pends upon co-ordinated manual skill, agility, strength, 
endurance, and form, all of which reflect and express 
a mental and moral attitude. For the soldier, for exam- 
ple, rapid and skilful use of modern machine-guns, the 
throwing arm (for the hand-grenades), short-distance 



PARTY PLATFORMS IN EDUCATION 59 

running with a fifty-pound burden, effective use of 
shovel and pick and other tools for excavating — all such 
results of concentrated technical training can be ac- 
quired best and most easily in a short time after ma- 
turity, as the Swiss, for example, have abundantly dem- 
onstrated. In our American high schools and colleges 
we have overtrained the few and neglected the many; 
we have, possibly, given the favored few the genuine 
and wholesome fighting spirit while failing utterly to 
provide means for any such expression for the great 
majority. 

Health and vigor for the individual at the critical 
high school period, not only as to his bodily dimensions 
and special skills in popular games, but as to the best 
development of his heart, lungs, and other vital organs, 
together with an educated consciousness regarding his 
physical efficiency and an understanding of the laws of 
hygiene in their concrete personal applications, consti- 
tute the goal and the safeguard of a nation's citizenry in 
the arts of peace and war alike. High school boys who 
are acquiring physical and mental control through a 
conscious educative process of personality development 
in its broadest and best sense will automatically make a 
nation unconquerable. Vital unpreparedness is physical 
and mental and moral in a much more profound sense 
than it is technical. As Doctor Dudley Sargent, of 
Harvard, says, we want educational preparedness rather 
than gladiatorial and spectacular preparedness. We 
shall have, if school boards hastily adopt measures look- 
ing toward incorporating military training into the high 
school curriculum, an ill-conceived and inadequate 
pseudo-military science, formalized and non-educational 
in character. 

Neither military science nor formal military exercises 



60 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

can successfully be superimposed or plastered upon our 
developing system of secondary education. The peda- 
gogical disasters sure to follow can easily be surmised. 
Officers, specialists in this military science, a nation 
must have, of course. But our existing higher and spe- 
cial military institutions must provide them. If neces- 
sary, the nation can easily afford to establish additional 
sectional institutions of the West Point type. 

After all this has been said, however, it would be a 
calamity if our high schools fail to capitalize the present 
experiences as regards the emphases and lessons of the 
World War. Let us, however, not in haste and vague 
fear and excitement confuse universal militarism at the 
immature high school age with that of nationally safe- 
guarding democracy. No mere technical, literal, and 
formal preparedness will suffice to secure such a funda- 
mental thing as American democracy. Let us not do 
soon again what the first extreme enthusiastic advocates 
of vocational education did; that is, expect, with the 
first shock and confused realization of the inadequacy of 
ourselves as a competing nation in this military as in 
the former vocational sense, that we can, in the twinkling 
of an eye, reverse the aims, ideals, policies, and even 
the somewhat naturalized mental processes of our dem- 
ocratic life. Militarism has not yet, let us remember, 
been made to spell national efficiency, much less a still 
higher national destiny. 

Will, then, we ask, simple military drill give the boys 
proper carriage, instil a wholesome love of country, and 
provoke a feeling that they are doing something for 
their country ? With broomsticks for their rifles, school 
basements and small gymnasium floors for their drill- 
grounds, monotonous and mass marching for their ath- 
letic games, and under trainers wholly out of touch and 



PARTY PLATFORMS IN EDUCATION 61 

sympathy with the historically rooted and controlling 
ideals of public high school education we can picture 
readily the premature educational farce of it all. 

Let us, instead, set to work to reform our athletics 
and reconstruct our system of physical education and 
raise the standard and dignify the status and functions 
of our directors of physical education. Incidentally, we 
can and should incorporate all legitimate features of 
military exercises, just as the Boy Scout organizations 
have possibly fairly well done. This emphatically does 
not mean that our American high schools and high school 
men are to capitulate to an educational ideal totally 
foreign to the vital and essentially American concep- 
tions upon which the ultimate success of American sec- 
ondary education depends. 

Each educational platform contained briefer mention 
of many other important matters, such as the desirable 
core of the elementary curriculum, the method of reor- 
ganizing old subjects into new " topics for study," the 
principles governing admittance into the school pro- 
gramme of new subjects and methods, and the desirabil- 
ity and possibility of nationalizing elementary educa- 
tion by selecting elements of common knowledge. Fur- 
ther minor planks indicated the sharp differences be- 
tween the two parties. These were, for example, the 
different values, methods, and organization of content of 
history courses and of general science, the basis for 
the selection of readings in literature, and the values of 
manual training. In all these matters, as, indeed, even 
more sharply in the matter of school extension, the two 
parties profoundly and honestly differed. 

The divisions being pretty nearly equal and the cam- 
paigns already launched, itineraries for the masterful 



62 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

leaders and powerful speakers, and also publicity 
schemes for the active educational and popular press 
were thoroughly mapped out and executed. The con- 
test was on. 

The Absolutists opposed a discernible movement of 
forces they obviously distrusted. They cared little for 
intercommunication or arbitration. They feared that 
the new modern army, with the newly invented modes 
of educational thought and with the new mechanical 
symbols of educational values, and with newly and 
strongly formulated scientific procedures, might, in its 
haste or in its religion of quantity, have forgotten some 
of the complex elements of humane and wholesome 
schooling which for them are embedded in the language 
of their generation. 

The Experimentalists (after John Dewey, their patron 
saint) incessantly proclaimed their philosophy of free- 
dom and fulness of human companionship as the aim, 
and their intelligent co-operative experimentation as the 
method, and hospitality to the incorporation of new ele- 
ments of education as the characteristic attitude of their 
party — that their philosophy of education did articulate 
and consolidate, penetrate and particulate the ideas to 
which our national social practice commits us — pro- 
foundly and directly promoting the efficacy of human 
intercourse, irrespective of class, racial, geographical, or 
national limits. 

The teacher vote, as to which platform of national 
educational principles they should sanction and support 
in their daily practice for the next four years, giving it 
thus a thorough test, was taken in early September just 
as the schools were, all through the nation, getting ready 
for what was to be a new era in American education, 
and what proved to be a new era for the whole world. 



PARTY PLATFORMS IN EDUCATION 63 

The " Teacher Mind" had grasped a fundamental 
truth well stated by George Santayana, 1 and, what is 
even better, had translated it into a vigorous construc- 
tive programme of action. 

The truth, which is at the same time the heart and 
soul of experimentalism, is that: 

"Systems of philosophy are the work of individuals. 
Even when a school is formed it prevails only in certain 
nations for a certain time, and unless the expression of 
dissent is suppressed by force, the dominant school even 
then is challenged by other schools no less plausible and 
sincere. Viewed from a sufficient distance, all systems 
of philosophy are seen to be personal, temperamental, 
accidental, and premature. They treat partial knowl- 
edge as if it were total knowledge; they take peripheral 
facts for central and typical facts; they confuse the 
grammar of human expression, in language, logic, or 
moral estimation, with the substantial structure of 
things. In a word, they are human heresies." ... 
"The background of philosophical systems, the ortho- 
doxy round which their heresies play, is no private or 
closed body of doctrine. It is merely the current imagi- 
nation and good sense of mankind — something tradi- 
tional, conventional, incoherent, and largely erroneous, 
like the assumptions of a man who has never reflected, 
yet something ingenuous, practically acceptable, funda- 
mentally sound, and capable of correcting its own inno- 
cent errors. There is a knowledge which common life 
brings even to savages, and which study, exploration, 
and the arts can clarify and make more precise; and this 
all men share in proportion to their competence and in- 

l See George Santayana: "Philosophical Heresy," Journal of 
Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, vol. XII, no. 21, 
October 14, 191 5, pp. 561-568. 



64 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

telligence, no matter what philosophies or religions may 
fill their heads at the same time. ... It lies (method 
of becoming a philosopher without becoming a heretic) 
in confessing that a system of philosophy is a personal 
work of art which gives a special unity to some chance 
vista in the cosmic labyrinth, . . . yet ... it should 
substitute the pursuit of sincerity for the pursuit of 
omniscience. . . . We should cease to hear of the ab- 
solute life of thought, in which everything was thor- 
oughly significant and thoroughly pathological. Knowl- 
edge might really advance and accumulate, because 
there would be a world for it to discover, and progress 
might be real just because in view of its fixed and nat- 
ural goal it would not be inevitable, constant, or endless. 
The naturalistic conception of what philosophy is and 
can be, of how it strays and is tested, would then be 
restored by general consent, as, indeed, it should be; 
for it is the plain deliverance of a long and general 
experience." 1 

1 See George Santayana: "Philosophical Heresy," Journal of 
Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, vol. XII, no. 21, 
October 14, 191 5, pp. 561-568. 



HIGH SCHOOL TERMINOLOGY 1 

With the rapidly growing literature of secondary edu- 
cation, scientific investigations of its problems are mul- 
tiplying, college courses and text-books for these courses 
are becoming more common, technical issues are arising, 
and some controversies, such as the one of vocational 
education within or independent of our single system of 
high schools, are becoming acute and wide-spread. The 
questions of pedagogy, of management, of administra- 
tion, and of supervision are complicated ones. Even 
the "fields" of secondary education are being differen- 
tiated. No longer may we disregard the prevailing con- 
fusion in usage of common terms. 

At a certain stage of development of every well-recog- 
nized division of knowledge vague terms, which suffice 
for general surmises and prognostications and exhorta- 
tions, have to be made more precise, less ambiguous. 

1 The terms below, with precise meanings given in each case, were 
presented at the general session of the National Commission on the 
Reorganization of Secondary Education at Richmond, Va., Febru- 
ary 25, 1914. They have also since then been submitted for criti- 
cism to every state superintendent of education in the United 
States. Sixteen of these men, or high school experts officially desig- 
nated by them to represent the attitude of their office, were kind 
enough to send me detailed criticisms and suggestions of various 
sorts. Some of these I have incorporated, others I have not been 
able to use, although in every case I have profited by the good points 
raised. Most of the writers expressed the intention of adopting all 
or a great portion of the terms as suggested below. It is hoped and, 
indeed, definitely planned for these formulations to bring to a head 
certain genuine issues. The purpose is accomplished upon either 
the definite acceptance or the definite rejection of the particular 
terms. 

65 



66 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

Psychology, for example, for its own purposes, had to 
make over our common-language terms, such as " sen- 
sation," "feeling," "image," and "perception" into 
terms with specialized and unambiguous yet simple con- 
notations. In no other way could scientific investiga- 
tion of such mental processes and formulation of the 
laws proceed. Such, of course, must be the case with 
the fundamental terms in the literature of secondary 
education. 

Thus far it has not been quite disastrous to use inter- 
changeably "vocational" education and "industrial" 
education, or "college preparatory" and "cultural" cur- 
riculums; but henceforth such distinctions are absolutely 
essential. Otherwise even our statutes will continue to 
have little meaning, or will continue to be open to sev- 
eral interpretations. As it is, in most recent legislation 
regarding vocational education we find "school," "de- 
partment," "curriculum," and "course of study" used 
interchangeably, or each in different senses, and the real 
issues in question most hopelessly confused. 

In the more general literature writers use the term 
"curriculum" in several and "course of study" in at 
least three distinct senses in printed announcements of 
"courses of study" and in other school reports. The 
collegiate terms "department," "major," "minor," and 
"unit" have been vaguely adopted in high school litera- 
ture; but in the future, as high school administration 
and pedagogy become more securely based on scientific 
studies of high school problems, such terms must mean 
in the language on intercommunication of high schools 
and colleges what they mean actually in high school 
practice. Colleges think of high school work in terms 
of their own practices with reference to problems of 
a department, curriculum, or major and minor. The 



HIGH SCHOOL TERMINOLOGY 67 

principles of entrance requirements will finally be writ- 
ten co-operatively by joint committees of high schools 
and colleges after this common language shall have 
been established. 

Again, "curriculum thinking' ' is just coming into the 
professional consciousness of high school principals and 
teachers. This is a sign of professional progress which 
will from now on develop rapidly. One reason for such 
vagueness and confusion in usage of the terms "curricu- 
lum," "course of study," and "programme of studies," 
as all who study this literature now find to be so com- 
mon, is that there are practically no genuine curricu- 
lums, differentiated with reference to distinctive educa- 
tional functioning of each such organization of studies. 
Hence, looking only at our present practice, we actually 
cannot distinguish in high school administration between 
programmes of study and curriculums (as defined below), 
on the one hand, or between genuine curriculums and 
certain arbitrarily grouped "allied" or sequentially 
related courses. 

It is evident and inevitable that the following system 
of terminology contemplates an ideal scheme for the 
reorganization of the entire public-school system. The 
following is a dogmatic sketch of its general architectural 
features. 

First, there would be the kindergarten of one year, 
with a plan of supervision of this co-ordinately with the 
first grade of the elementary school described below. 
This ideal kindergarten must by all means retain all its 
present good features, and under this proposed plan of 
supervision it must also effect a combination of those 
good native elements with those elements and methods 
of the Montessori system which can be made adaptable 
to our American children under American conditions. 



68 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

Following this we must have an elementary school of 
six years. The primary purpose of this proposed na- 
tional unit must be and will be more succinctly statable 
in terms of child life and child nature. This smaller 
unit, for curriculum purposes, will lend itself more 
readily to characterization in terms of educational values 
and distinguishable function. The two distinguishing 
characteristics will be something like the following: 
First, a normal deftly planned environment for the pre- 
adolescent child to grow — not memorize — in; second, a 
school whose secondary purpose will be to make the 
child in this prepubescent period a lover of reading; a 
master of the fundamentals of arithmetic, so that these 
naturally unfatiguing and naturally enjoyable opera- 
tions will become an automatic and dependable part of 
his thinking (easier when we know better how to do it 
and when we have no adolescent problem in the same 
environment to confuse the issue); and one who can 
write legibly — perhaps typewrite — and who, by a simpli- 
fied ( ! ) method, can spell accurately. 

Then would come our intermediate or junior high 
school of, in most cases, three years. Here our work 
must resemble that of the high school proper, but with 
one important difference: it must retain the best gram- 
mar-grades methods, personalized instruction, and in no 
case attempt more than partially vocationalized training 
in its partially differentiated curriculums. 

Following this would come our senior high school of 
three, four, or five more years, the curriculum extension 
depending upon the size and character of the community. 
This branch of the public-school system will be the great 
socializing and vocational as well as the chief cultural 
institution of our democracy. We are probably at the 
present time arriving at that stage of our educational 



HIGH SCHOOL TERMINOLOGY 69 

development, so far as state systems of education are 
concerned, when it may be wise to incorporate into the 
local systems, by state financial encouragement if nec- 
essary, the hundreds of struggling private colleges of the 
country which, hampered by lack of proper equipment, 
are doing at best but a high grade of the type of work 
contemplated for the senior high schools. 

Coupled with and in some vital way affiliated with 
this great differentiated public high school system will 
be our national system of school extension, including 
part-time schools of every variety, continuations for 
every class and for every age, evening schools equipped 
and administered as effectively as the public day-schools, 
and vacation schools, all-the-year schools, to naturalize 
us to national as well as individual education which has 
no end and should have no end, and, when properly 
adjusted and adapted and varied, no intermittence. 
With all this instructional and training function of the 
high school thus extended it will be but a natural step 
and an easy one for the high school to take over from 
the universities the "corrimunity-service" work of ele- 
mentary character — which consumes the time of expen- 
sive experts on university staffs now. 

It will be seen clearly that genuine reorganization of 
public education contemplates an educational condition 
in which it may be possible for real universities to exist 
independently of the secondary features by which they 
seek now, necessarily, to attract students. It is more 
in keeping for the high schools to render service "di- 
rectly conducive to the general good," as is the prevail- 
ing elementary university " extension service" of water 
analysis, popular advice in sanitary and other forms of 
engineering, of agriculture and public health; and "to 
give instruction in the arts and facts of civilized life"; 



70 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

and leave the universities proper free from these tem- 
porizing but laudable contributions to the ordinary 
needs of the community, and by more general assent 
definitely committed to the cause of "the higher intel- 
lectual interests and strivings of mankind." 

Terminology, left alone, reflects practice. Refined, 
even somewhat arbitrarily, it may serve to suggest a 
better practice. With this in mind, and in order to pro- 
voke further discussion and criticism, the following com- 
monly used terms are defined: 

"Elementary education." The method of elementary 
education consists primarily in organizing the instincts 
and impulses of preadolescent children into working 
tools and interests. It is a process of providing fertile 
experiences and exercises by means of which the quali- 
ties of non-reflective childhood may be preserved while 
essential educational forms and instruments for later 
intellectual use are being systematically acquired. In 
subject-matter elementary education utilizes systems of 
simplification and organization of educational materials 
wholly without reference to the logical principles which 
determine the differentiation of the well-recognized 
fields of knowledge of the different college subjects of 
study. No quantitative unit system of evaluation with 
reference to high school entrance requirements for this 
elementary education is desirable or practicable. The 
outcome of elementary education should be a preadoles- 
cent child with wholesome interests, alert curiosity, 
free from self-consciousness and capable of communi- 
cating and of enjoying the expression of his own expe- 
riences by means of the school arts and disciplines of the 
elementary curriculum. 

"Secondary education" has for its particular sphere 
the general information and training in the facts and 



HIGH SCHOOL TERMINOLOGY 71 

arts of civilized life. It may be roughly distinguished 
from elementary education as being primarily con- 
cerned, on the side of subject-matter ■, with the differen- 
tiated character of the various subjects of instruction, 
and from higher education by the essentially elementary 
and general character of these differentiated fields of 
knowledge. On the other side of method secondary edu- 
cation may be distinguished from elementary in that it 
involves primarily an appeal to the pupil's appreciation, 
judgment, and sense of relative values, and places its 
greatest emphasis upon self-revelation and trained indi- 
viduality, rather than upon the "organization of in- 
stincts and impulses of children into working interests 
and tools," the formal aspects and instruments of edu- 
cation. In method secondary education is to be dis- 
tinguished from higher education in that the former 
wholly excludes and the latter only includes subjects 
involving relative maturity of mind and of treatment. 
Higher education requires a mental attitude of detach- 
ment from subject-matter, whereas in method in secon- 
dary education the teacher must personally evaluate 
the content of studies. One may reasonably expect as 
the characteristic outcome of secondary education for 
one group of students the sustained interest, the impel- 
ling motive, and the training adequate to pursue effec- 
tively work in one or more of the studies represented in 
the programmes of higher education, and for the other 
group the capacity for effective service in a well-recog- 
nized occupation and with an equally adequate capacity 
for profitable enjoyment of leisure. 

"High school" is that part of the public-school sys- 
tem in which are administered courses organized into 
one or more cultural or vocational curriculums (or either 
or both), entrance to which ordinarily presupposes the 



72 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

completion of an elementary curriculum of six, seven, 
eight, or nine years, or which may have for entrance 
requirements, instead of such scholastic standards, the 
equivalents in age, maturity of development, and voca- 
tional needs of entering pupils. A high school may 
extend its courses and its curriculums over periods of 
four, five, six, seven, or eight years. The existence of 
a high school implies in any case pupils, teachers, and 
courses organized into one or more curriculums, and an 
institution whose internal government and administra- 
tion is distinct from and co-ordinate with that of the 
elementary school embracing the first six years. 

"Junior high school" is that portion of the public- 
school work above the 6th elementary grade, including 
the 7th and 8th, or the 7th, 8th, and 9th grades, which 
is organized under a distinctive internal management 
with a special principal and teacher, and which provides 
for departmental teaching, partially differentiated cur- 
riculums, prevocational instruction, and a system of 
educational advice and guidance. 1 

"Senior high school" is that portion of the public- 
school work above the 9th grade which is organized 
under a distinctive internal management of special 
principal and teacher, and which includes in its curricu- 
lums instruction covering three, four, or five years be- 
yond the junior high school, and whose minimum re- 

1 There is in every state a large number of school systems in 
which one or more years of high school instruction of an academic 
character is added to the grade work. These grade extensions 
should not be called high schools. We might possibly call them 
"partial high schools" or "grade extension schools" or "incomplete 
high schools." They should not be called junior high schools, as 
they have not the requisite administrative and pedagogical distinc- 
tiveness. In the event of finding no suitable generic term we may 
call them simply one-year, two-year, or three-year high schools, or 
perhaps nine-grade, ten-grade, or eleven-grade schools. 



HIGH SCHOOL TERMINOLOGY 73 

quirement for graduation is the completion of courses to 
the amount of fifteen credit units above the 8th grade. 
"Junior college" is that portion of the public-school 
work which embraces the years and courses of instruc- 
tion beyond the 12 th grade, and which may be con- 
sidered as equivalent to the corresponding work on the 
first two years of a standardized college curriculum. 

KINDS OF HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION 

Only rough and arbitrary distinctions may be made 
between general and special, or vocational education. 
These distinctions have for the present purpose only 
administrative, not pedagogical, value. Educationally 
at every point any particular " course" has both ele- 
ments which blend into each other. "Curriculums," 
however, must be constructed with some dominating 
emphasis upon a distinguishing purpose. 

"General education" (for this administrative purpose) 
is education in which the dominating emphasis is placed 
upon equipping the individual for effective participation 
in the aesthetic, intellectual, and other cultural activities 
of civilized life, and for the appreciation of the products 
of such activities, and which is deliberately planned 
with reference to the postponement of any specialized 
training or information bearing upon the particular 
duties and opportunities of a recognized vocation. 

"Vocational education" 1 (for this administrative pur- 

1 This group of definitions represents an attempt to modify, sup- 
plement, and adapt some of the terms recently embodied in legisla- 
tive enactments concerning vocational education in Massachusetts, 
Indiana, Pennsylvania, and several other states. The chief differ- 
ence is that on the present basis vocational education is made broad 
enough to include, in addition to the types of training referred to 
in the above statutes, commercial curriculums, and teacher-training 
curriculums — equally as important, truly as vocational in character, 
and as clearly demanded of high schools. 



74 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

pose) is any education the immediate and definite pur- 
pose of which is to fit for profitable employment by pro- 
viding special training or skill in and information con- 
cerning a given vocation. 

" Pre vocational education" includes all the instruc- 
tion and training of the years immediately following the 
first six years of elementary education, which may be 
distinguished from the general, or academic, education 
of these same years by the fact that in content and 
method it is designed to prepare the pupils for carrying 
on the operations and processes both of intelligence and 
of manual skills common to groups of fundamental 
vocations. It is distinguished from " vocational educa- 
tion" in the necessary limitations in definiteness and 
completeness of its special trainings and in the fact that 
it is only a partially differentiated scheme of training. 

" Industrial education" is, in any instance, that form 
of vocational education which is designed to fit for a 
particular trade, craft, or other wage-earning pursuit, 
including the occupation of girls and women carried on 
in stores, workshops, and other establishments, but ex- 
cluding household service. 

"Agricultural education" is that form of vocational 
education which is designed to fit for the vocations con- 
nected with the tillage of the soil, the care of domestic 
animals, forestry, and other wage-earning or productive 
work on the farm. 

"Domestic education" is that form of vocational edu- 
cation which is designed to fit for vocations connected 
with the household, such as sewing, millinery, dress- 
making, or nursing. 

"Commercial education" is that form of vocational 
education which is designed to fit for any kind of clerical 
duty connected with the operation of commercial estab- 



HIGH SCHOOL TERMINOLOGY 75 

lishments, such as bookkeeping, stenography and type- 
writing, and clerkships; and also any form of education 
of the same years which is designed to equip pupils for 
secretarial positions, or to become salesmen, business 
directors, or general transactors of business on their 
own account. 

" Teacher- training education'' in "high schools" is 
that form of vocational education which is designed to 
fit for the profession of teaching and classroom manage- 
ment in rural schools, and which, furthermore, is defi- 
nitely planned for that group of high school pupils who 
plan to teach immediately upon graduation. 

"Independent industrial, agricultural, domestic 3 or 
teacher- training high school" 1 is an organization of 
pupils, teachers, and correlated courses designed pri- 
marily to provide industrial, agricultural, domestic, 
commercial, or teacher-training education, and which is 
administered by a distinctive management, independent 
of the management of the high school. 

"Industrial, agricultural, domestic, commercial, or 
teacher- training curriculum" is in each instance courses 
of secondary grade and character organized and clearly 
designed for the vocational needs of a particular group 
of high school pupils, but administered and supervised 
by the same management that administers the "general" 
curriculum of the high school. 

"Evening class" is an independent industrial, agricul- 
tural, domestic, commercial, or teacher-training high 
school, or in any of these curriculums of a high school is 
a class receiving such training as can be taken by per- 

1 This type of public high school (which does not exist in the 
United States) is here defined so as to bring out clearly a legislative 
issue now critical in some states. The paragraph should be con- 
trasted with the one immediately following, which describes more 
nearly the existing state types of high schools. 



76 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

sons already employed during the working-day. This in- 
struction may be general, or it may deal with the subject- 
matter of the day employment and be so carried on as to 
relate to the day's employment, or it may be training de- 
signed to equip the individual for a different kind of occu- 
pation from the one in which he at the time is engaged. 

"Part-time class" is an independent industrial, agri- 
cultural, domestic, commercial, or teacher-training high 
school, or in any such curriculum in a high school is a 
vocational or general class for persons giving a part of 
their working time to profitable employment and re- 
ceiving instruction complementary to the practical work 
carried on in such employment. Such persons must 
give a part of each working day, week, or longer period 
to the part-time class work during the period in which 
it is in session. 

" Continuation school" (besides including the types of 
education of "evening class" and of "part-time") refers 
also to any courses of "general" as distinguished from 
"vocational" character which may be offered by pub- 
licly employed school officers and teachers to persons 
not enrolled as pupils in the day high school, nor in in- 
dependent vocational schools as denned above. 

TERMINOLOGY FOR INTERNAL ADMINISTRATION AND 
SUPERVISION OF HIGH SCHOOLS 1 

"Programme of studies" refers to all the high school 
subjects offered in a given school without reference to 

1 The terms "programme of studies," "curriculum," and "course 
of study" have been denned by the Committee on College Entrance 
Requirements (Report, p. 42). With the change of "course of 
study" to "course," thus avoiding the natural and frequent con- 
fusion of the term with "curriculum," and with modifications in 
phraseology and some further restrictions in connotations, the gen- 
eral distinction approved by this committee with reference to these 
two items has been here preserved. 



HIGH SCHOOL TERMINOLOGY 77 

any principle of organizing these subjects and courses 
into curriculums. 

"Schedule of classes" is the daily and weekly arrange- 
ment of classes showing the time of day, place, and fre- 
quency of meeting, and the instructor in charge of the 
course. 

" Curriculum' ' (course of study) is any systematic 
and schematic arrangement of courses which extends 
through a number of years and which is planned for 
any clearly differentiated group of pupils. Administra- 
tively a "curriculum" represents an arrangement of 
courses within which a student is restricted in his choice 
of work leading to graduation. 

"General curriculum" is a curriculum designed pri- 
marily to meet the general and later professional needs 
of a group of pupils who choose definitely to postpone 
their special preparation for a particular vocation. 

"Vocational curriculum" is a curriculum designed to 
meet the needs of a group of pupils who are to enter 
immediately a recognized vocation. 

"Allied group" 1 of "courses" refers to studies whose 
subject-matter is closely related, as, for example, two 
or more courses in physical science or biological science 
or agriculture or language. "Allied group" of "high 
school subjects" suggests such large combinations (often 
helpful in the administration of group requirements, 
majors and minors, and as a guide in the assignment of 
work to teachers) as the sciences, the humanities, the 
fine arts, and the practical arts. 

"Sequential group" of courses refers to courses in a 

1 As there are few distinctive curriculum differentiations as yet in 
high schools of any kind, and many partial curriculums, "allied 
group" and "sequential group" of courses are useful descriptive 
terms for this transition period in the evolution of high school cur- 
riculums. and are here defined. 



78 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

given high school subject or in closely related high 
school subjects which are planned for certain pupil 
groups that are to continue electing courses within this 
group through several different " school classes." These 
courses are so administered and taught that, because of 
the logical relationships, graded difficulty, and partial 
curriculum purpose, each course in the group implies 
the next, credits for any often being contingent upon 
completion of the group. 

"Department" in high school work is any admin- 
istrative unit in the assignment of subjects, of allied 
groups of subjects, or of courses to teachers. 

"School subject" refers to any one of the well-recog- 
nized divisions of knowledge, one or more courses or 
half-courses in which are offered in the programme of 
studies, such as history or German. 

"Course" is the quantity, kind, and organization of 
subject-matter of instruction in any high school subject, 
offered within a definite period of time for which a credit 
unit or a fraction of a credit unit toward graduation is 
granted, as second-year Latin or first-year algebra. 

"General course" is a course which equips an individ- 
ual for his future duties and opportunities without defi- 
nite reference to those connected with his special voca- 
tion. 

"Vocational course" is a course which equips an indi- 
vidual with the specific skills and insights peculiar and 
essential to his chosen vocation. 

"Credit unit" represents a year's study in any high 
school subject constituting approximately a quarter of a 
full year's work of a high school pupil. With a four- 
year high school curriculum as a basis a school year's 
work of from thirty-six to forty weeks is assumed, and 
it is further assumed that a school year's work in any 



HIGH SCHOOL TERMINOLOGY 79 

subject will approximate 120 sixty-minute periods, and 
that any course will be pursued for four or five periods 
per week. 

" Extra credit" represents the satisfactory completion 
of those additional requirements for graduation for 
which " credit units" are not granted, as, for example, 
is often the case with vocal music, gymnasium work, or 
handwriting. 

" Outside credits" refers to the official school recogni- 
tion of work done by pupils outside the school-building 
and out of school hours. 

"Unit of instruction" applies to those relatively lim- 
ited number of larger and more important topic divi- 
sions (fundamental as distinguished from accessory top- 
ics) into which the subject-matter of a given course may 
be broken up. These "units of instruction" usually 
represent divisions of the course whose treatment ex- 
tends over a half-dozen or a dozen or even more class 
periods, depending partly upon the character of the sub- 
ject-matter itself and partly upon the individual teach- 
er's preference. 1 

"Graduation" means ordinarily the completion of 
courses to the amount of fifteen credit units beyond the 
8th grade and the fulfilment of all other requirements 
relating to standards of scholarship, observance of 
school discipline and standards of morality generally. 

"School year" is the normal time required for the 
completion of the courses amounting to four credit units 
or their equivalent. 

"Class period" means the time, varying from 40 to 

1 This unit of instruction, generally a larger division of school 
work than the recitation and smaller than the course, is both an 
administrative and a pedagogical unit, and should in every case be 
determined beforehand through co-operation of teacher and super- 



80 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

1 20 minutes, spent continuously upon one course under 
the teacher's active supervision in classroom work. 

"Subject class" means any group of pupils who recite 
or in any other way work together co-operatively during 
a class period upon any high school subject under the 
immediate direction of a class teacher. 

SYSTEMS OF ADMINISTERING COURSES 

"Elective system" is the plan of administering the 
choice of subjects and courses whereby each pupil indi- 
vidually may receive from the principal or a designated 
teacher guidance in his selection of courses, but may not 
be restricted in this selection. 

"Group system" is the plan of administration of 
pupils' choices of subjects and courses which places 
restrictions upon these elections of courses, generally 
making selections contingent upon the remainder of the 
work planned for the given school year or other years, 
these prescriptions and alternatives being pointed out in 
the schedule of classes or otherwise by some system of 
advice and guidance made clear to the students. As 
with the elective system, the group system allows for 
individual combination courses. 

"Curriculum system" implies the organization of 
courses into distinctive curriculums definitely planned 
with reference, not to each individual's personal needs 
primarily, but with reference to the different educational 
requirements of special groups of pupils, curriculums 
based upon social as well as upon psychological consid- 
erations. This system emphasizes chiefly the election 
of curriculums only, allowing some leeway within each 
curriculum, but allowing for the time little freedom for 
individual choice of studies belonging to other curricu- 
lums than the one to which the pupil has been assigned. 



HIGH SCHOOL TERMINOLOGY 81 

"High school major" means three credit units done 
in sequence in any high school subject, as English, Latin, 
German, history, mathematics; or three credit units in 
some "allied group/' such as physical science, biological 
science, social science, manual training, household arts, 
or fine arts. 

"High school minor" means two credit units of work 
similar in character to that described for a major. 

"Pupil" rather than "student" or "scholar" desig- 
nates boys and girls enrolled in elementary and high 
schools. 

"School class" refers to that group of high school 
pupils whose school status, based upon their school 
marks and promotion records, is officially denned with 
reference to their year of graduation, as senior class. 

"Grade" (with the year 9th, 10th, etc., attached), as 
10th grade, is used to distinguish the "school class" of 
high school pupils, rather than "freshman," "sopho- 
more," "junior," and "senior." 

"Marks" (not "grades") means the qualitative esti- 
mates of the pupil's work in courses which constitute 
the official school record. 

"Honorable dismissal" 1 refers to conduct and charac- 
ter only, and is never to be given unless the pupil's 
standing as to conduct and character is such as to en- 
title him to continuance in the school granting the dis- 
missal. In this statement full mention should also be 
made of any probation, suspension, or other temporary 
restriction imposed for bad conduct, the period of which 

1 The definitions of these last two terms are adaptations of reso- 
lutions adopted by the sixth conference of the National Conference 
Committee on Standards of Colleges and Secondary Schools, Feb- 
ruary 19, 1913, as is, substantially, the definition of "credit unit" 
given above. 



82 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

restriction is not over when the papers of dismissal are 
issued. 

"Statement of record" refers to the recorded results 
of a pupil's work in the classroom, and in every instance 
contains all the important facts pertaining to the pupil's 
admission, classification, and scholarship. 

EXPLANATORY COMMENTS ON THE TERMINOLOGY 
DEFINITIONS 

All the terms, with the obvious exceptions, "secon- 
dary education" and "unit of instruction," are defined 
in an administrative sense and do not have primarily 
pedagogical distinctions in view. Apologies are frankly 
offered for venturing to define secondary education 
qualitatively. It seemed necessary to preface the other 
terms with some such rough characterization of the 
field. 

"High school" is defined above broadly so as to in- 
clude all education of public character which may be of 
secondary grade, whether vocational or general, com- 
posite or special, junior or senior. 1 

"General" and "vocational" education, having refer- 
ence to curriculum education and not to the character 
of any isolated course or subject, are distinguished pri- 
marily as to immediate purpose, the former offered 
mainly for those (about one-fourth of the high school 

1 One state superintendent writes: "I approve of all your terms 
except your too broad definition of high school. It seems to me 
we should limit the term high school to the institution that has been 
so long regarded as the standard, based upon an eight-year elemen- 
tary course and lasting four years." 

On the contrary, I have here taken the position that nobody does 
right now know how to characterize the "standard institution," and 
that the term "high school" may now well become a generic term, 
as "college" to an extent has become in the literature of university 
catalogues. 



HIGH SCHOOL TERMINOLOGY S3 

enrolment) who have expectations of further education 
of more advanced grade; the latter offered for those who 
either before or upon high school graduation definitely 
plan to engage in some wage-earning pursuit, and also 
offered to attract still others who are not enrolled at all. 
There is no implication here that general education has 
no vocational value, algebra, for example, nor that voca- 
tional education has no cultural value, an agricultural 
curriculum, for example; but that in a curriculum with 
the former as its emphasis the pupil is clearly postpon- 
ing specific vocational training, and in the latter type 
of curriculum he is consciously preparing to enter imme- 
diately upon it. 

The various kinds of vocational education of secon- 
dary grade are denned so as to represent them as equally 
vocational and as thus co-ordinate in function. Enrol- 
ments in these curriculums reported in Bulletin No. 22 
for 191 2 of U. S. Bureau of Education justify also this 
co-ordinate ranking. An examination of several hun- 
dred printed high school "courses of study," " curricu- 
lums' ' according to our proposed terminology, seems to 
indicate the prevailing tendency of large high schools to 
organize their programmes of study into substantially 
the five curriculums defined above, although there are 
more than five terms for the correlated instruction 
offered. 

The terms distinguishing between "independent voca- 
tional schools" and the same kind of education in the 
form of a vocational curriculum in a high school of the 
standard type are so denned as to make clear the differ- 
ence between the prevailing "single system" of high 
schools and the proposed "dual system" seriously advo- 
cated in some states. Even the legal terminology thus 
far of the different states that have passed legislation is 



84 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

confusing on this point. In many educational discus- 
sions the administrative and the pedagogical issues in- 
volved are anything but clear. The average layman, 
for example, identifying high school with the general 
curriculum, will not think of other possible curriculums 
for the same high school. He will naturally think that 
a new kind of school must come into existence for the 
new function. Seeing the contrasting pedagogical func- 
tions of the two kinds of instruction proposed, he as- 
sumes that with this difference must exist also the ad- 
ministrative distinction — in short, that different schools 
must be administered. The terminology items seek to 
show the equal possibility of thinking the two kinds of 
curriculums, general and vocational, within or without 
the present system of public schools, while admitting in 
either case their pedagogical distinctiveness. In other 
words, they seek to avoid the confusion of using "school" 
and "department" or "curriculum" or "division" as 
identical or equivalent. 

The terms relating to matters of internal school man- 
agement, supervision, and especially reporting and for- 
mulating of policies, are proposed with a view to clear- 
ing up a certain evident confusion in the minds of many 
high school principals. It should be noted that "sub- 
ject class" and "school period" are here so defined as 
to refer either to the old "recitation" type of class- 
meeting, or to the laboratory period, or to the class 
period (single or double) in which a good portion of the 
time may be devoted to supervised study or other par- 
tial substitutes for this traditional activity of formal 
reciting. It might be a good thing, perhaps, to drop 
the term "recitation" altogether. 

The assumption in denning "curriculum" is that 
eventually every high school will design and administer 



HIGH SCHOOL TERMINOLOGY 85 

some genuine curriculum, the small high school often 
only one, the large high school many, and different 
types of large high schools different sets of curriculums. 
It is clear here that the proposed connotation and usage 
of this term and of the term " course" below will cause, 
at first, great inconvenience, as the custom is wide- 
spread in all circles to use " course of study" in the 
fourfold sense of " programme of studies," "curricu- 
lum," "high school subject," and also of "course." We 
are just entering, as is pointed out above, an era of cur- 
riculum building, curriculum thinking, and curriculum 
controversy. It is a critical period in high school de- 
velopment. Proponents of general and of vocational 
high school education often do not understand each 
other. College and university faculties do not under- 
stand the demands of high school principals with refer- 
ence to entrance requirements; and these principals do 
not understand the conclusions to which these faculties 
come in their academic discussions of this question. If 
"curriculum," "high school department," "course of 
study," "high school major" or "minor" and other 
such terms, reflecting clearly actual school practice, 
should mean approximately the same thing in our 
printed catalogues and other educational literature, and 
if our educational journals could all adopt this elemen- 
tary framework for necessary discussions of these funda- 
mental issues, it is more likely that we should get some- 
where in our teachers' association meetings and local 
conferences, and get further in our practice and in the 
institutional co-operation of school and college. 

The term "department" here is temporarily rescued 
from its ambiguous use in certain legislation on voca- 
tional education, and is adopted to call attention to the 
fact that it is an administrative unit, and that its mean- 



86 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

ing in high school administration, from the nature 
of secondary education, must, as with "major" and 
"minor," convey a meaning quite different from "col- 
lege departmentalism," certainly in the large majority 
of high schools. 

An "extra credit" has reference entirely to high 
school graduation, a "credit unit" refers to the evalua- 
tion of high school work by higher institutions. High 
school graduation and college entrance standards may 
or may not be identical. The very difficult questions of 
the "unit" and "credit unit" values of the 9th and 
10th grade work, as compared with the nth and 12th 
grade, or of the effect upon unit value of work done in 
"allied" subjects upon a credit unit in a given subject 
in this group or of the different "unit" and "credit 
unit" values of different qualities of work (as designated 
by "marks") can, in these preliminary suggestions, be 
barely mentioned as a problem later to face, 

"Units of instruction" is introduced and so defined as 
to give, through official recognition and sanction, some 
basis for high school classroom supervision. If teacher 
and supervisor are essentially in agreement as to "units 
of instruction," supervision of teaching becomes possi- 
ble. This evaluation of subject-matter of courses in 
terms of class period time is one of the first steps toward 
standardization of high school courses. This "unit of 
instruction" is defined at the risk of introducing confu- 
sion because of the great need that the attention of 
schoolmen be drawn to the supervisory practice it sug- 
gests. The suggestion should not be interpreted as ad- 
vocating necessarily the same units of instruction and 
time values for different teachers of the same course. 
It merely means that no course should be conducted in 
disregard of this principle. 



HIGH SCHOOL . TERMINOLOGY 87 

Several of my co-operating critics among the state 
superintendents do not wish to restrict "graduation" 
to the completion of fifteen units. They think those 
completing work in two and three year high schools 
should be allowed to "graduate." This paper, notwith- 
standing, advocates the restriction suggested in the defi- 
nition above, even in case the "junior high school" 
should become an established feature. 

The common confusion from interchange of usage of 
"marks" and "grades" is familiar to all schoolmen. 
The usage suggested is proposed as a corrective. 

"Pupils" rather than "student" or "scholar" seenis 
to be the decided preference of the large majority of 
high school principals and teachers as the characterizing 
term to apply to their charges, and is, therefore, here 
recommended. 

Attention may well be called to the attempt to de- 
scribe "commercial education" in broader and more 
liberal terms. It is noteworthy that many state super- 
intendents independently comment upon the necessity 
of dignifying and also differentiating curriculums sup- 
plying training for different business occupations. It 
should be realized, also, that " teacher- training educa- 
tion" in high schools is a fact, with state laws authoriz- 
ing its support in a good number of states — not a theory 
about the functions of high schools. This revolutionary 
measure bids fair, if it is more than a temporary make- 
shift in teacher training, to revolutionize the high schools 
in extent of years of schooling as well as in character of 
instruction and "setting" in a state system of education. 

There is a feature of the definition of "evening class" 
which represents an attempt to improve upon what ap- 
pears to be a blunder in the formation of recent laws 
relating to vocational education in Indiana, Massachu- 



88 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

setts, and other states, in that the character of instruc- 
tion offered in such publicly supported education need 
not necessarily be restricted in subject-matter to that 
dealt with in the day employment, a law which is work- 
ing injustice already and which is defeating the voca- 
tional interests it was framed to foster. The phrase 
"course of study" is dropped, as it now frequently 
enjoys the three usages recommended in turn for pro- 
gramme of studies, curriculum, and course as noted 
above. 

The writer suggests these restricted uses for the above 
terms partly because he believes they are in the main 
correct and that they will clear up certain obscure but 
important current issues in high school administration. 
The chief reason for offering them, however, is to arouse 
discussion and to receive suggestions. Any criticisms, 
suggested additions to the list or suggested omissions, 
will be seriously considered in the hope that eventually 
some definite proposals may be made to different educa- 
tional associations and journals, by the adoption of 
which they may contribute also to clearness in educa- 
tional thinking, so far, at any rate, as it is concerned 
with the administration and supervision of secondary 
education. 



THE HIGH SCHOOL ISSUE 

(Current high school developments disclose many "issues." The 
movements looking toward providing federal and state aid for types 
of secondary education have made most prominent the fundamental 
issue of whether or not our prevailing system of secondary education 
can provide adequately all the kinds of education of this grade that 
society requires. This situation, involving as it does the most pro- 
found educational questions, has, in the opinion of many, received 
too hasty legislative consideration. The method of this presenta- 
tion (with apologies to Plato and Berkeley) is to discuss more vividly 
than mere abstract exposition will allow some considerations which 
should serve as guiding principles. The well-known Cooley Bill for 
Illinois contemplates a "dual" system of public secondary educa- 
tion for the "vocational" and for the " non- vocational " pupils after 
they have completed the elementary school or have reached the 
maturity of fourteen years of age. It therefore serves to raise the 
very vital question of proper instructional and training functions 
of our existing public high schools. 

The persons of the present dialogue talk as they have talked in 
print. In many cases the actual phrases are re-employed here. 
The author pleads "poetic license" in case the authors disclaim 
this very literal application of their educational doctrines to the 
high school. Aside from this special application, he thinks he has 
not misrepresented their several educational philosophies, references 
to which are clearly indicated in the foot-notes. — Author.) 

PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE 

Members of the Educational Committee of the State 

Legislature. 
Chairman and Members of Legislative Committee of 

the State Teachers' Association. 
Dr. John Sturm, Pedagogue. 
John Dewey, Educational Philosopher. 
William E. Ritter, Biologist. 
Cassius J. Keyser, Mathematician. 
Paul Elmer More, Editor — Litterateur. 
Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States. 

89 



90 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

Georg Kerschensteiner, Director of Education in Munich. 

A " bewildered " High School Principal. 

A College Professor of Education. 

An Advocate of the Cooley Bill. 

A Director of a German Gymnasium. 

A Headmaster of a French Lycee. 

A Headmaster of an English Public School. 

A State Superintendent of Public Instruction. 

Scene. A Conference Room at the State House, Spring- 
field, 111., called to consider "The Reconstruction — 
or the Duplication — of the State's System of Sec- 
ondary Education." 

Chairman of the Legislative Committee presiding. 

Gentlemen, Distinguished Visitors, and Members of the 
Legislative Committees : 

A momentous issue is to be considered by us this eve- 
ning. Questions of profound educational significance 
and administrative difficulty are involved. Departing 
from our usual and, for the most part, necessary prac- 
tices of logrolling, pooling of inexpert opinions, and bal- 
ancing of interests represented by our committee mem- 
bership, we propose to spend one evening upon the 
merits of the educational issue before us. 

May we proceed at once? What basal principles 
shall guide us in reconstructing the system of public 
high school education in our state? What methods and 
what organizations of instruction must we provide and 
secure for our boys and girls between the ages of 14 (or 
possibly 12) and 18? And, consistent with our decision 
in this matter, what administrative machinery, both 
central and local, will best insure for us the accomplish- 
ment of our purpose ? 



THE HIGH SCHOOL ISSUE 91 

I suggest, because of this purely educational charac- 
ter of our meeting, that we arrive at tentative guiding 
principles by voicing our yeas and nays upon each 
minor issue as we proceed, thus reflecting and preserv- 
ing for reference as near as may be the "general sense" 
of this more or less expert body. 

We shall proceed. Dr. Sturm. 

Dr. Sturm (a sort of pedagogical Rip Van Winkle). 
Modern Gentlemen and Educators: I have been asleep 
since 1589 until a few days ago. I am assured, how- 
ever, by six of the distinguished representatives present 
that the history of education presents no other type of 
secondary school curriculum upon which have been 
modelled any such number of secondary systems as my 
curriculum at Strassburg, which for 43 years I refined 
toward pedagogical perfection in turning out graduates 
adept not only in Latinitas pur a, but in Latinitas ornata. 
These gentlemen indeed insure me that I have hit upon 
the essential principle of curriculum building, namely, 
centering upon one kind of content. This content, as 
you all know, is* Latin. Exclusively for four good hours 
every day for 10 years Latin in our famous school was 
taught, read, spoken and written. Imitation, good 
memory in reproduction, Latinizing ourselves in the 
good imaginary Roman atmosphere secured the greatest 
intellectual endowments. 

(The members of the conference are impressed, but 
in different ways, by this confident old German.) 

Dr. Georg Kerschensteiner. I am intimately acquainted 
with the historical developments in Germany since 1589, 
and partly agree and partly disagree with the views 
expressed by our venerable Dr. Sturm. 1 Moreover, I 

l G. Kerschensteiner, "The Schools and the Nation" (London, 
trans., 1914). 



92 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

have personally followed for 25 years the struggle of 
Prussian higher schools for the monopoly in education. 
I was keenly concerned in the Kaiser's decree in 1900, 
settling the question of " privilege' ' and allowing the 
Realschulen to share with the Gymnasien this monop- 
oly in education. What I questioned, even about this 
momentous decree, itself an educational compromise, 
was whether it really represented a movement in the 
interests of a more profoundly useful state system of 
secondary education. Since the 1826 controversy of 
Thiersch and Schulze two theories of secondary educa- 
tion have articulately existed and been strongly cham- 
pioned in Prussia. Thiersch, like our respected Dr. 
Sturm here present, advocated one pillar for the secon- 
dary curriculum and insisted that this should be the 
classical pillar. Schulze advocated what I shall call the 
"steam engine" method, or securing an " all-round" 
education by driving abreast, as it were, in each boy's 
mind the classical and the scientific instruction. 

In my opinion, sir, future time will justify Thiersch in 
his one-pillar basis for a curriculum, but history will 
record his mistake in his exclusive advocacy of the clas- 
sical pillar. The most fatal demand which secondary 
schools the world over have had to face is the demand 
for this dream of general all-round education. It im- 
poses such conditions that necessitate cramming the 12 
to 18 year old with information only — conditions that 
make impossible the moulding of an harmonious soul 
from within. It further implies the equally fatal 
assumption that we educate all along the same general 
direction. 

To test the sense of this body, I suggest, Mr. Chair- 
man, that we approve, as our first fundamental require- 
ment for reconstructing secondary schools, the principle 



THE HIGH SCHOOL ISSUE 93 

of circumscribed specialization of instruction. Our first 
vital educational question is to decide between special- 
ized curriculums, or a general type curriculum. 

I believe in a one-pillar classical school, or in America 
or France in one-pillar "curriculums." I believe in the 
equal value of a one-pillar modern language curriculum, 
a natural science curriculum, a classical curriculum or 
equally in a number of one-pillar special vocational cur- 
riculums. We want men, not lexicons. Let us not 
labor under the delusion, however, that the so-called 
" intellectual studies" only can produce culture. The 
screw-vice or turning-lathe may also present weighty 
problems and furnish motives for thorough theoretical 
research. 

Gentlemen, as a foreign visitor I have trespassed upon 
your hospitality and have become disputatious, I fear. 
My conviction that I am advocating, not a substitute 
and alternative for culture, nor a compromise with de- 
mands of culture, but really the first essential law of all 
organization, that a school curriculum must rest upon 
one pillar, leading to culture through one main depart- 
ment of learning, of wide range, but unified by a single 
idea, is my only excuse. 

Chairman. Is there a motion that we vote upon this 
educational principle ? 

(All remain serious and thoughtful, but no action is 
taken.) We shall then proceed with the discussion. 
May we hear from Mr. More, formerly editor of the 
Nation ? 

Mr. More. I agree with Dr. Kerschensteiner that our 
secondary school must train citizens rather than merely 
efficient civil-service officials; that our students' work 
must show mastery in some field, and that there are 
many fields of alluring interest. I could not have sup- 



94 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

ported the proposed motion, however, because I believe 
the best thing a secondary school can do is to seize upon 
the best educational material and work it to the ut- 
most. 1 I believe in an intellectual aristocracy, a natural 
aristocracy — and in the continued and augmented pub- 
lic educational provision for the support of this select 
scholarly class. The unity of this select class is our 
only means of obtaining the real end of our democracy. 
This class will and must formulate the ideal of pure 
humanity and of moral freedom. 

Gentlemen, I congratulate you upon having called 
together this group for this particular purpose of estab- 
lishing norms in education, of stating the purposes of 
schools. Thus far there has been scarcely a conscious 
effort to make of education an harmonious driving 
force. I agree with the English teachers of our Rhodes 
scholars and with the Prussian gymnasial exchange 
teachers and with the Carnegie Foundation (Fifth An- 
nual Report) that young American boys and girls are 
unacquainted with the hard manipulation of ideas, genu- 
ine exercises in intellectual gymnastics. They do not 
know firm reasoning. Even when they grow up and 
become college professors, they show a singular inability 
to think clearly and consecutively, and do not exhibit 
the habit of orderly and well-governed cerebration. 
Their higher faculty of the imagination has not been 
disciplined. They have never had the sublime vision. 
In short, we do not try hard enough to thin out the un- 
malleable minds and to provide for the entrance of the 
select into the real nobility of the intellect. 

State Superintendent. The speaker's phrases are lofty, 
but we educational officers must think in terms of the 

1 P. E. More, "Academic Leadership," The Unpopular Review, 
vol. II, no. 3, pp. 32-152. 



THE HIGH SCHOOL ISSUE 95 

specific courses and combinations of courses for our cur- 
riculums, and must suggest desirable curriculum types 
as guides for 250 or more high schools, on the average, 
in our different States. 

Mr. More. I was for the moment transported to the 
realm of pure ideas. I will be specific. I mean that we 
now know that some studies are more effectively educa- 
tive than others. (Cites investigations to prove that 
classical students surpass their rivals in all fields where 
a fair test can be made. 1 ) 

In some respects I agree with Dr. Sturm, in some 
with Dr. Kerschensteiner; but I differ from either on 
some other points. English, for example, cannot be the 
backbone of a sound curriculum. There are too many 
names and dates, too much unsystematic and irrelevant 
geography and grammar, and too frequent evaporation 
in romantic gush over beautiful passages. German and 
French afford some exercises in mental nimbleness, but 
are scarcely rigorous enough for this single-pillar cur- 
riculum foundation. Mathematics and physics require 
some close attention and firm reasoning, and are an 
essential part of a curriculum. I am, however, sceptical 
of the effect of the non-mathematical sciences on the 
immature mind. The usual elementary and pottering 
experimentation in chemistry or biological science af- 
fords an almost negligible mental grip. My experience 
as editor leads me to believe that science in itself is 
likely to leave the mind in a state of relative imbecility. 
Its students not only lack the graces of rhetoric, but, 
aside from giving an account of an experiment, they do 
not think lucidly and logically. 

Now, gentlemen, Latin and Greek, not as Dr. Sturm 
taught them, but as I would have them taught — from 
1 Op. cit., p. 137. 



96 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

their sheer difficulty, their organization, the refined men- 
tal exercises in discriminating nearest word equivalents, 
the effort of lifting one's self out of the familiar rut of 
ideas into so foreign a world — act as the only supreme 
tonic exercise to the brain. Their surpassing educative 
possibilities, moreover, have been demonstrated, as I 
have pointed out, by scientific investigation of effects, 
as well as through the educational experience of the 
world. The modern classical ideal, this initiation into 
the spirit of Hellenism, has held captive even the great- 
est minds. 

In conclusion, gentlemen, our secondary schools and 
our colleges are selective agencies. Those who can pass 
their high standards must constitute the living reposi- 
tories of our modern learning, and must be the modern 
governing oligarchy, an oligarchy of the intellectuels, a 
culture which all with unmalleable minds must support, 
and to which they must bow. This limited number of 
secondary pupils must pass through a common intellec- 
tual training, acquire a single body of ideas and images, 
become a noble culture cult. Their initiation must be 
through this single group of studies, the classics, accom- 
panied by a modicum of the mathematical sciences. 
These studies alone have a specific power of correction 
for the more disintegrating tendencies of the age. 

(There is an observable impulse to applaud the sound 
of these noble utterances, but still no definite proposal 
to commit the group to any principle.) 

Cassius J. Keyser (speaking with warmth). I have 
been engaged for years in the study and classification of 
specimens of human thought, and have no quarrel with 
Mr. More on the human worth of rigorous thinking. 1 

r C. J. Keyser, "The Human Worth of Rigorous Thinking," 
Science, Dec. 5, 1913, pp. 789-800. 



THE HIGH SCHOOL ISSUE 97 

This rigorous or pure thinking is a relatively rare phe- 
nomenon. The ideas of the vast majority of so-called 
educated men and women are too nebulous and vague, 
too little refined and denned to be available for con- 
catenative thinking and rigorous discourse. Most of 
the world's thinking done on a given day on the streets 
or farms, or in factories or stores, or in offices of doctors 
or lawyers, or in school or college classrooms, or — pardon 
me, gentlemen — in our halls of legislation comes far 
short of the demands and standards of rigorous thinking. 

A Member of the Legislative Committee. I wish to 
suggest to the professor that this is possibly why we 
cannot understand the drift of his remarks now. 

Professor Keyser. The drift of my remarks is that 
the goal of all thinking — of all education — is mathemati- 
cal, not linguistic. Through mathematics alone the in- 
tellect attains harmony. It is the means of giving wing 
to the subtler imagination. It is the basis for criticism, 
for speculation, for esthetic judgment, for ethical evalu- 
ation, and even for religious ecstasy in contemplating 
ideas under the form of eternity. 

In short, gentlemen, there is no co-ordination of edu- 
cational disciplines. All disciplines are subordinated to 
the mathematical. I agree with the one-pillar base in 
the construction of a curriculum, but I do not agree 
with Dr. Sturm or Mr. More as to what this base shall 
be, nor do I agree with Dr. Kerschensteiner that almost 
any field of knowledge will serve as the curriculum core. 
Mathematics is our only hope, gentlemen. 

Mr. Wm. E. Ritter. Gentlemen of the conference: I 
have devoted a good deal of time to the inspiring task 
of formulating ten biological discoveries and generaliza- 
tions which have, I believe, very great importance to 
civilized men, but which, through the inadequate posi- 



98 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

tion in the curriculum of biological sciences, are by no 
means widely known. 1 I shall not detail these ten bio- 
logical laws here, but stake my scientific reputation 
upon the assertion that these laws are of very great 
moment to the higher intellectual and spiritual life of 
the people generally; that the high school boy or girl is 
capable of understanding the most essential things in 
these discoveries, and that most of them have bearing 
upon the universal problems of personal experience. I 
agree with Dr. Kerschensteiner and dissent from the 
views of Messrs. More, Keyser and Sturm, to the ex- 
tent at least of asserting that biological studies can well 
be the pillar of a curriculum. 

Chairman. My committee are somewhat hazy, gen- 
tlemen, on these technical matters of educational values. 
It appears that each branch of learning has its cham- 
pion. I feel constrained at this point to call upon our 
scholar statesman, President Woodrow Wilson. 

Mr. Wilson. We have in this country, if I may apply 
my thoughts on college education 2 to the high school, a 
miscellany of courses excellent in themselves, but ar- 
ranged with no organic connections, with no fixed 
sequence, with little regard to any particular congruity 
between the several parts. 

I do not find myself in sympathy with the one-pillar 
theory, gentlemen. For the sake of making a clear 
issue, therefore, I shall advocate a three or four pillar 
curriculum and sketch what I wish it to accomplish. 

Our country needs men whose minds have had a 



1 W. E. Ritter, University of California Publications, vol. IX, 
no. 4, pp. 137-248, March 9, 1912. 

2 W. Wilson, "The Arts Course as Distinct from the Professional 
and Semi- Professional Courses." Proc. of Asso. of Am. Universities. 
Eleventh Annl. Conf., pp. 73-88, Jan., 1910. 



THE HIGH SCHOOL ISSUE 99 

vision of the field of knowledge, whose intellectual sym- 
pathy is genuine and catholic, and whose power of com- 
prehension is well developed. This citizen must be able 
to receive, to see, to discriminate, to sympathize, and 
to comprehend. He must state things with precision 
and reason with exactness and fearlessness, moving hon- 
estly and directly from premises to conclusion. He 
must be able to state a fact without stating an opinion. 
The three ideal elements of our curriculum must be (i) a 
discipline of principle, not the old barren discipline of 
process; (2) an enlightenment, not of mere information, 
but of acquaintance with the thoughts and deeds and 
moving impulses of the modern world; and (3) a manly 
freedom of one whose interests accord with the general 
interests of society. The pillars of such a curriculum 
should be science, literature, and the field of history and 
politics. (For the college I should add philosophy.) 
Through science he, the student, would get preposses- 
sions of scientific inquiry, the fixed scientific habit of 
mind, which will enable one to walk about the world less 
a stranger to the processes, results, and means of pro- 
duction in the realm of nature. As Huxley admonishes, 
his mind must be stored with a knowledge of the great 
and fundamental truths of Nature and Of the laws of her 
operations. 

In literature he could get intimations of the overpow- 
ering delights of enlargements and thrill, and be stirred 
by human adventure, move within the spirits of other 
men, and sweep the horizon for all the airs that are 
astir. The necessity of history and politics in providing 
general orientation for modern students is too obvious 
to elaborate. This three-pillared arrangement, gentle- 
men, represents my practical solution of the question 
before us. I am unconvinced of the feasibility of Dr. 



100 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

Kerschensteiner's curriculum with a vocational pillar, 
although I appear to be more modern than some of the 
other speakers in other respects. I have even appointed 
a Federal commission to look into this matter of voca- 
tional education of secondary grade. 

Chairman. For the sake of making our issue clear, 
may we hear again from Dr. Kerschensteiner ? 

Dr. Kerschensteiner. I respond heartily to the ideals 
of President Wilson. They are the genuine ideals of 
college men of Oxford. They do not, however, apply, I 
believe, to the secondary-school system as a whole which 
America is now developing. It should be clear that 
America must do, through some enlargement and rami- 
fication of function and multiplication of curriculums of 
her secondary-school system, what European systems of 
France and Germany partly seek to do through exten- 
sion of their elementary-school system. You have an 
absolutely unique social and educational problem. Your 
secondary schools are also people's schools. Ours are 
not. The typical American city has varied interests 
and activities, a heterogeneous population, families of 
wealth, families of small means, families cultivated, fami- 
lies uncultivated, families with conflicting economic in- 
terests, some with, some without influence, representa- 
tives from all of which are engaged in professional, 
industrial, commercial, artistic and domestic occupa- 
tions. Your secondary system of education must either 
select one of these classes and leave the rest to other 
educational agencies, as ours frankly does, or it must 
meet all these varied educational requirements. If the 
latter is really your basis for organization, support, and 
development, then you are, in my opinion, committed 
to the multi-curriculum basis. This circumscribed spe- 
cialization of the materials and skill exercises for in- 



THE HIGH SCHOOL ISSUE 101 

struction and training is your first fundamental require- 
ment. Pursuing my first principle of a one-pillar basis 
for all sorts of secondary education, I answer your spe- 
cific question as well as the definite issue raised by Mr. 
Wilson by saying : I can well believe that a school, either 
of modern languages, or of natural sciences, or a tech- 
nical school, would be of quite equal value with one 
of the older classical schools; but what I cannot admit 
is the value of a classical, modern-language, natural- 
science, mathematical, manual-training, fine-arts insti- 
tution — that mongrel production — pardon my limita- 
tions in the softening of meanings in your language — of 
certain dilettanti with a passion for organizing. With such 
a hopeless conglomeration of subjects, all of equal value, 
our future secondary schools should have nothing to do. 

Director of Prussian Gymnasium. Gentlemen, your 
illustrious statesman President is voicing the historic 
and present ideals of our Gymnasium. We seek just 
this, a broad humanistic training, making one intelli- 
gent and independent in the world of the arts and sci- 
ences. To my great surprise the whole discussion so 
far, with the exception of that of my countryman, Dr. 
Kerschensteiner, seems to assume the European, not 
what I had supposed was an American, conception of 
secondary education. 

(No dissent.) 

Headmaster of a French Lycee. May I inquire if the 
one and one-fourth million American high school pupils 
now enrolled and the three-fourth million of high school 
age out of school and now idle or in blind alley occupa- 
tions are all destined to receive this high training for 
intellectual leadership in professional careers of which 
we have heard such glowing accounts? 

(No one seems inclined to answer the inquiry.) 



102 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

Headmaster of an English Public School. According 
to our English Board of Education, 1 secondary schools 
have a twofold function — the training of those who 
aspire to occupations requiring a highly trained in- 
telligence and those who plan to extend considerably 
into later years their educational preparation for life. 
There must be, however, a "Common Course" for both 
groups. In extreme cases the Government will allow 
a vocational bias to the curriculum — never a vocational 
base or pillar. Our national cardinal pillars are the 
seven usual academic studies, with large weight placed 
upon the foreign languages and mathematics. 

I suppose I may speak for my German and French 
colleagues as well as for England with respect to one 
important point not yet mentioned. Our secondary 
schools serve as excellent agencies for segregating the 
classes from the masses — a most convenient and appreci- 
ated feature. 

Chairman. These characterizations of foreign types 
of high schools are interesting, and Mr. Wilson's educa- 
tional statesmanship inspires us all, I am sure. It will 
be well to have some comment at this point from our 
American High School Principal, despite his continued 
look of bewilderment. 

Bewildered American High School Principal. Gentle- 
men, I have no such clear ideas of the purpose of the 
high school as have my visiting colleagues from Europe 
or the university specialists here present. Whenever 
we American high school principals hear of some new 
curriculum we at once regroup our high school subjects 
and thus provide, on paper, the curriculum desired. 
Most of these curriculums, however, are merely the re- 

*" Curricula of Secondary Schools." Circular 826. (Board of 
Education, London, 1913.) 



THE HIGH SCHOOL ISSUE 103 

sultTof a reshuffling of courses. They are merely paper 
curriculums. As a matter of fact, we have in America 
no " pillar theory" of curriculum construction. I re- 
cently read carefully the published curriculums of 40 
high schools of American cities with about 20,000 popu- 
lation. These 40 schools offered 180 curriculums, aver- 
aging more than four curriculums each. I know that 
no one of them furnishes four thorough and distinguish- 
able trainings for as many intelligibly grouped divisions 
of the students. I myself print eight curriculums for 
our pupils, but most of them represent varieties of the 
college preparatory, Those that do not are vocational 
mainly in name. From the points of view of the func- 
tions of secondary education, the principles of curricu- 
lum construction, the bases for assigning students to 
curriculums, systems of educational and vocational 
guidance, and the securing of teachers of vocational edu- 
cation, I am forced to admit to this body that I am 
entirely at sea. I feel that the American high school 
is somehow on trial, and that radical readjustments are 
impending. I have found this conference absorbingly 
interesting. I hope, however, engrossing as these spec- 
ulative questions are, that something more definite may 
issue from it before we adjourn. We principals have to 
do something each day. We wish safe guidance. 

Chairman. Before going on to this practical consid- 
eration of the next step in the development of secondary 
education, I am sure all of us should like a unifying 
word from Professor John Dewey, America's best-known 
philosopher of education. 

Mr. Dewey. All the discussions thus far have been 
as grist to my philosophical mill. Every statement has 
some measure of truth. I believe with Mr. More and 
Mr. Wilson in giving a prominent place in the curricu- 



104 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

lum to those subjects directly touching upon human life 
itself, its art, its literature, and its politics — that knowl- 
edge which touches our offices as human beings, which 
lays hold of our emotions and imagination and unifies 
character. These things stir men to action, and they 
are good. Although these in practice are the last things 
the average student gets from the classics, the ideal 
remains. 

Nevertheless, at least an equal place in the curriculum 
must be given to the sciences. 1 This scientific attitude 
of mind must be fixed during the early years of life. 
The future of our civilization depends upon the widen- 
ing spread and deepening hold of the scientific habit of 
mind. High schools must discover how to mature and 
make effective this mental attitude. Civilization must 
be ruled, not as heretofore, by things and words, but by 
thought. I would go so far as to say that only the 
gradual replacing of a literary by a scientific education 
can assure to man the progressive amelioration of his 
lot. Our boys and girls should have some idea of kinds 
of evidence, of proofs, and a lively interest in the ways 
knowledge is improved as well as a marked distaste for 
unscientific conclusions. Science has done none of these 
things. It must. It has formed no social or moral 
ideas, but if we are ever to live and be governed by in- 
telligence, not words, science must have something to 
say about what we do. 

You see, gentlemen, the curriculum pillar I should 
erect. Moreover, this emphasis upon science as method, 
as habit of mind rather than as subject-matter, in no way 
precludes any of the curriculums Dr. Kerschensteiner 
advocates. I shall even go further than Dr. Kerschen- 

x John Dewey, "Science as Subject-Matter and as Method." 
Science, Jan. 28, 1910, pp. 121-127. 



THE HIGH SCHOOL ISSUE 105 

steiner. My conception of all secondary curriculums — 
and I admit a variety, from the college preparatory to 
the trade curriculums — must all be shot through and 
through with vocational connections. The realization 
that organized knowledge arose in connection with in- 
dustry and human needs must permeate the whole 
school. All instruction must, of course, rise to the 
plane of general ideas, must be personalized and inter- 
pretative, never merely narrative, negative, destructive. 
The social and ethical, the genuinely vocational, as well 
as the purely physical or mental, come within our scope 
here. 

These are my general principles. I shall have more 
to say upon the practical decisions when our body here 
moves on to a definite issue. 

College Professor of Education. In order to be clear 
as to how Dr. Kerschensteiner's principle of definite 
goals for each secondary curriculum is to work in every- 
day practice, I wish to inquire if in his specialized cur- 
riculums he would have, say, one-quarter or one-third 
of the total time allotment of a student devoted to this 
major or pillar subject, and, say, one-half of the remain- 
ing time to cognate or allied subjects and the remaining 
time to the still more remotely related and indirectly 
contributory fields? 

Dr. Kerschensteiner. In so-called academic work the 
gentleman describes the proposed school application 
very well, but for the technical curriculums I should 
suppose the so-called "project" work would make the 
procedure more complicated. 

Chairman. Curriculum making has been called the 
"indoor sport" of schoolmen. I begin to see its deeper 
aspects. We are glad to have these deeper issues raised. 
We shall hear from the State Superintendent. 



106 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

Slate Superintendent. We have two sharply opposing 
views of the Ideal American High School. One of these 
is that the high school must be a miniature university 
in form of organization, with its agricultural students, 
its students of the commercial arts, students of the 
mechanic arts, students of the domestic arts, and its col- 
lege preparatory students. This means that the varied 
high school programme must have curriculum offerings 
for these important and distinguishable groups — all 
within the public school system. It is the counter sug- 
gestion offered as a substitute for and better than the 
separate and undemocratic and costly plan for extension 
of secondary education provided by the well-known 
Cooley bill, which, if passed, will tend to impose upon 
the present high school only academic responsibilities 
and thus weaken it in the popular mind, and deprive it 
of the rejuvenating effects of the parallel and competing 
vocational curriculums. The State Commission bill, 
favored by all the school people, as I interpret it, carries 
rather the implication of the desirability and practica- 
bility of several high school curriculums, preserving the 
good features of the Cooley provision and omitting the 
"dual system" feature. This "curriculum-differentia- 
tion" feature of the high school instructional programme 
is the common feature upon which harmony is sought. 
It seeks, moreover, what both approve — and it reflects 
the real cause of the whole issue in every State in the 
Union — this need of vocational education. 

The other view, the traditional view of the high 
school, is that identical items of knowledge, identical 
curriculums, a single curriculum, in fact, is the ideal 
toward which designers of high school curriculums 
should strive. This is presented as the only safeguard 
to social sympathy, national loyalty and other com- 



THE HIGH SCHOOL ISSUE 107 

mon virtues essential to a democratic civilization. To 
those who have looked long for curriculum designs in 
the high school programme, to say nothing of the ele- 
mentary, the panicky fears of curriculum differentia- 
tions are groundless. The arraignment of the move- 
ment toward curriculum variations seems like raising 
up a bogey or straw man and hitting him very hard. 
Those senior and even junior high school principals, 
with the exception of those in the larger cities, with 
whom I have talked have rarely found possible yet even 
a partial differentiation. Besides, I have found no one 
who, even in the remote future, hopes to differentiate 
trainings so completely that a liberal amount of com- 
mon instruction will not be required in all the curricu- 
lums. The German higher schools, under a dual or 
even triple system of local administration are undemo- 
cratic and un-American, not for the lack of common 
elements of instruction (for they have these every- 
where), nor from the fact that their limited number of 
differentiated curriculums are well and carefully de- 
signed for special governmental purposes (for they are 
admirable in this respect) , but because they do not pro- 
vide for some classes in their system at all. The princi- 
ple of "special privilege" characterizes all German sec- 
ondary schools. The more thoroughgoing curriculum 
differentiation on a purely democratic basis of social 
requirement and individual preference and suitability 
would seem rather to provide, within our thus extended 
secondary system of public education, just that daily 
contact, social intermingling, mutual acquaintance and 
enlarged appreciation of diverse educational and voca- 
tional aims and ideals represented in our high school 
student body. This student body, too, will be much 
larger and must be vocationally more representative 



108 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

than it is now. Fundamentals for our educational and 
social democracy must be provided, but not by the 
single rigid curriculum, even were this curriculum to 
combine all the good features of all the distinguished 
specialists who have spoken. 

Advocate of the Cooley Bill. I agree with all that has 
been said with respect to the great need of all sorts of 
vocational education for boys and girls of high school 
age, about two-thirds of whom are in school and one- 
third of whom are even now in blind alley jobs or in 
vicious idleness. I agree with the one-pillar theory of 
curriculum making. I agree that we must furnish some 
other than the traditional kinds of high school educa- 
tion for these adolescent youths of both sexes. Every 
speaker has admitted that all systems of secondary edu- 
cation have, on a scholastic basis, become selective in- 
stitutions, and have despised and ruthlessly thinned 
out of their ranks those, to use Mr. More's phrase, 
"with unmalleable minds." Secondary educators all 
over the world have always been blinded by their devo- 
tion to the intellectually superior minority among their 
pupils. They fail in entrance standards and otherwise 
to allow for the multitude who cannot satisfy the same 
scholastic requirements by completing the elementary- 
school system, and they fail to work definitely with and 
for those — at least half their total enrolment — who can 
only make beginnings in high school work. Our sec- 
ondary educators are, more than half of them, young 
women. Out of each hundred of the men even, every 
10 have had only four years beyond the elementary 
school, 45 only from four to eight years of some sort of 
training, 30 eight years, and 15 have had nine or more 
years, still academic, for the most part. Of the 25,000 
women, whose training is more restrictedly academic 



THE HIGH SCHOOL ISSUE 109 

and even linguistic perhaps, the amount of such prepa- 
ration is practically the same. In some of our states 
nearly one-half of the whole high school teaching force 
shift places after one year. A small proportion are pro- 
fessionally trained in the administration, pedagogical, 
and social work of the high school. 

Gentlemen, the moving spirit of American public 
schools, like that of the European systems, is too 
firmly established to make room for what you all admit 
is needed — specialized secondary curriculums for the 
needed skilled artisans, for the mass of farmers, for the 
homekeepers and home servants, for the clerks and 
independent small-scale business men, for the young 
aspirant for rural-school teaching, for three-quarters of 
the high school population, and for the other three- 
quarter million who should be in the high schools and 
are not. Your present-day, typical high school and 
college educator cannot deal sympathetically with the 
aims of vocational education. 1 His predilections, in 
disregard of the so evident present necessity of tempo- 
rizing adjusted curriculums, is for the purely intellectual 
approach, even to problems of skill as well as to those 
of understanding. Furthermore, I doubt his and her 
ability in this field. For this reason I advocate the 
Cooley bill. We have too much at stake to run the 
risk of accepting the paper curriculums such as the high 
school principal present admits are now the rule, where 
indeed even a pretense at vocational education is pro- 
vided. We need a new kind of Federal Board of Voca- 
tional Education, a new and separate state board, cuV 
tinct local boards, distinct school districts, distinct school 
administrators, a wholly new kind of teacher, new types 

*See D. Snedden, Bulletin 18, Proc. of Nat. Soc. f. P. Indl. 
Edn., Oct., 1913, PP. 55-59. 



110 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

of teaching, new sorts of apparatus, and separate state 
and local school funds. This movement, with our many 
and increasing national associations, is the twentieth- 
century religion — a social educational philosophy, a new 
solution of social problems, an indication of a profound 
educational revolution. Seven states have passed vo- 
cational education laws, and as many more are working 
for one now. In some respects most of them have tem- 
porized with tradition. With the exception of Wiscon- 
sin, their steps, while in the right direction, have been 
timid and hesitating. They offer the shadow for the 
substance. They are exploiting a cheap vocational ed- 
ucation; they are deceiving themselves with formulae of 
forms of vocational education too simple and too easily 
comprehended. They are turning out products upon 
which the real vocational world looks with pity and 
contempt. 

Gentlemen, let us have all that the learned speakers 
have advocated, but let us also make sure of the present 
vocational need also. The Cooley bill provides educa- 
tionally for what we all want. No one opposes any of 
its features, except certain technical matters of the 
machinery of administration. 

Chairman. Does any one propose a definite expres- 
sion of this body on any of the issues raised ? 

State Superintendent. I wish to add a few comments 
before we test the sentiment of the conference. In my 
opinion, despite the fact that we have approved no 
definite step as yet, we have made great progress. We 
have sensed the power and dignity and integrity of our 
representatives of pure scholarship; we have noted the 
right ring in the voices of those who feel the urgency of 
vocational education; we appreciate the legitimate and 
natural points of view of our foreign visitors, and we 



THE HIGH SCHOOL ISSUE 111 

accept as genuine the fervid arraignment of our present 
system of public high school education by the advocate 
of a new and parallel system. So long as I have a voice 
in the legislation for our own state I shall champion all 
the educational ideals here presented. 

I would supplement what the last speaker has said — 
and admit even more of the shortcomings of our present 
system. Massachusetts enrolls about 60,000 in her high 
schools. She has about 45,000 of the same age in un- 
productive employment. Vermont enrolls only 5722 
of her 25,000 15-18-year-olds. Likewise, an estimate of 
87 school superintendents of Illinois leads me to say 
that this state has 34.5 per cent of its adolescents out 
of school and idle or in undesirable employment. Fur- 
ther than this, 32 per cent of these school administrators 
do not think it possible for the high school to offer a 
vocational curriculum. 

This curriculum making and thinking is a new thing, 
even if it prevails. It marks an epoch in high school 
development. It cannot be accomplished in a day 
under any system. It is, under present conditions, the 
rare school that can do any real experimentation in 
this field. We do, however, have numerous experiments 
which are indicative of a movement toward differen- 
tiated curriculums. There is a notable effort of scien- 
tists in the different fields to co-operate in relating 
sequentially the various high school science courses, in 
providing a more suitable introduction, and in adjusting 
subject-matter, methods and new kinds of courses to the 
different curriculums in which these courses are func- 
tioning. Likewise, all the language and literature work 
of the curriculums shows the same sort of co-operative 
designing and adaptation purpose. It is true of the 
historical, civic, and economic instruction. The at- 



112 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

tempts of manual-training departments to expand and 
ramify, to extend their fields, to correlate with freehand 
and mechanical drawing, to become adjusted to trade 
or agricultural demands are likewise indicative of un- 
derlying curriculum designing. Absolutely no field of 
education has developed so rapidly as the secondary 
field. I am of the opinion that we may safely legislate 
with reference to all these desirable curriculum changes 
and additions within the present system; that it would 
be too expensive and impractical otherwise; that the 
present high school needs the exhilarating effect of such 
new spirit and novel pedagogy; that the curriculums 
with the new pillars need the steadying standards of 
the old ones, and that they also need some of these aca- 
demic subjects with which to round out any specific 
vocational training which may form the curriculum 
base. 

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the 
conference, I move that it is the present sense of this 
body that — 

Chairman. Pardon me. We are to hear again from 
Mr. Dewey. 

Mr. Dewey. I believe we may still follow where the 
argument leads. The ends in view of the last two 
speakers are the same. We must do nothing to make 
our present organized public educational system indif- 
ferent to this new and vital movement, still less antag- 
onistic to it. 1 We must not deprive industrial educa- 
tion of such valuable co-operation, nor literary educa- 
tion of the pedagogical and moral influences of this 
vocational spirit in education. This infusion of new and 

1 J. Dewey, "Should Michigan Have Vocational Education under 
'Unit' or 'Dual' Control?" Proc. of Soc. f. P. Indl. Edn., pp. 
27-34, Oct., 1913. 



THE HIGH SCHOOL ISSUE 113 

fresh purposes merely means that the industries and 
the business houses and the workingmen and the home- 
keepers are joining in with the college in making known 
to high schools desirable preparations for high school 
students whose career intentions point in their several 
directions. Assuming this interest and concern of the 
community as a whole, we want for our public high 
school, through its differentiated and well-designed cur- 
riculums, a complete rounded-out scheme representing 
all factors in a unified school system. The Cooley bill 
represents a desperate measure, a measure of last resort. 
One large fallacy is that it assumes that many children 
must leave school at 14, and creates an agency which is 
thus largely interested in doctoring and patching up 
these children after they get into industry. The ten- 
dency will be to be less interested in them before they 
leave school. Though we must do what we can for 
those whom the school has lost, still our fundamental 
necessity is to change our educational system so that 
these children will not, and cannot afford and will not 
wish to, leave school generally at 14. An American city 
of 40,00a 1 should have a large centrally located high 
school occupying a whole block, with auditorium, sev- 
eral good laboratories, a gymnasium, a library, and pos- 
sibly the beginnings of art collections. This should 
easily be the most important institution of the city. 
Moreover, it should exist for the education of the whole 
people. The regular day attendance should be 1500, 
the evening attendance of youths and adults 2000, and 
the social-center activities numerous and varied. Such 
a high school should profoundly influence the home 
life, the spiritual life, and the commercial and industrial 

1 See Report of a Survey of the School System of Butte, Mont., 
June, 1914, p. 68. 



114 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

life, as well as the aesthetic development of the entire 
city. We cannot split nor duplicate such elaborate 
physical plants, but more — we cannot establish two 
sources for educational uplift and inspiration. Our high 
schools have a history; they are a part of the educational 
personality of all our cities and towns; they should be 
allowed to grow — indeed should be forced to expand — 
but never to divide. 

Headmaster of French Lycee. The last speech reminds 
me that M. Buisson of the Chamber of Deputies has 
introduced a bill of similar import in France, advocating 
a unified national school with liberally bifurcated cur- 
riculums, and a three-cycle curriculum arrangement, 
allowing for a broad vocational education. 

Director of German Gymnasium. There is a similar 
principle in the strong movement in Germany for the 
"Einheit School." 

Headmaster of the English Public School. The Liberal 
Party of England likewise is proclaiming the ideals of 
national education in many particulars much like the 
movements named. 

College Professor of Education. Secondary education 
in all civilized countries of the world is the object of 
national inquiries and reforms. With a loyal and com- 
prehending trust we are turning to the public high 
school as the guardian of our modern culture. At pres- 
ent this high school is puzzled by conflicting necessities; 
it is hampered by contradictory and sometimes harping 
criticism; it is bewildered by its unescapable responsi- 
bilities. 1 It knows that it must expand to meet the 
composite needs of a whole people. It wishes to appre- 
hend the nature of these needs. Even with lavishness 

1 Annie K. Tuell, "Our 'Classical Recollections,'" Atlantic 
Monthly, Dec, 191 4, pp. 778-786. 



THE HIGH SCHOOL ISSUE 115 

in experimental waste it must meet with a practical in- 
telligence the necessity of the laboring world for efficient 
vocational preparation. It must also do even more 
than it is now doing to keep clear the road to the trea- 
sures of deeper learning for those who, by fortune or by 
energy of divine intellectual discontent, can prolong 
their search well beyond the high school years. The 
problem of secondary education is a baffling and a 
double one. Let our high schools honor first their great 
popular and urgent vocational mission, but let them at 
the same time indulge a little of that wholesome defer- 
ence and that heartening devotion to learning without 
which any and all of us are in a sorry plight indeed. 

I move you, sir, that it is the sense of this body 
that— 

The American high school is inclined toward expan- 
sion from within to the extent of strengthening still 
further the language, the history and the science cur- 
riculum pillars, and of adding bona fide vocational cur- 
riculums and fine arts curriculums; 

That the professional status of its teaching ranks is 
steadily rising; 

That its ruling administrative policy is favorable 
toward all legitimate extensions of school activities; 

And that, therefore, all legislation with reference to the 
education of youth above 14 years of age should build 
upon the existing national system of public high schools. 

Chairman. Those in favor will please stand. 

The motion prevails. 

Chairman. We are indebted to you, gentlemen, and 
we assure you we shall deal in executive session more 
intelligently with the issues involved in the bills which 
are soon to be passed upon by us and recommended by 
us to the legislature. 



THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 

The work of the secondary-school teacher assuredly 
falls within one of the most stimulating and interesting 
periods of human development. Every one knows that 
during the " teens" boys and girls "grow up" (to use 
the root meaning of the Latin adolescere). Jimmie of 
the grades becomes Mr. Brown of the high school seniors, 
while his sister Mabel undergoes almost under our eyes 
an even more striking transformation into young 
womanhood. Of course it is possible to exaggerate; 
there is no cataclysm, no overnight metamorphosis, yet 
those who have commented upon the physical and men- 
tal alterations characteristic of the period have com- 
monly regarded them as sufficiently rapid and suffi- 
ciently extensive, in comparison with the more gradual 
alterations of childhood and with the steadier progress 
of maturity in the years that follow, to be regarded as 
constituting a special period of peculiar significance, 
especially of peculiar significance to those teachers 
whose business it is to know human nature and to make 
impressions upon it. 

The actual span of adolescence is somewhat variable; 
we think of it as roughly covering the time between 
puberty and maturity. Puberty is defined by the 
physiologist as that stage of physical development at 
which an individual first becomes capable of begetting 
or bearing children. Ordinarily this stage is reached by 
girls in their twelfth or thirteenth year, and by boys in 
their fourteenth year, though there are marked varia- 
tions in the time of its appearance, e. g., from as early as 

116 



THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 117 

the tenth to as late as the twentieth year. There is a 
close connection between growth in height and pubertal 
change, so that the stage of physical development that 
is attained may often be estimated correctly by noting 
the rate of increase of stature and of weight. The fact 
that girls reach the onset of puberty earlier than boys 
is likewise reflected in their outward growth; there is 
actually a period between the ages of 1 1.5 and 14.5 when 
girls are taller than boys, and a period between the ages 
of 12.5 and 14.5 when girls are heavier than boys of the 
same age. In other measurements, like strength of 
grip, lung capacity, etc., girls again are found to reach 
a period of rapid physical development earlier than 
boys, though they never, as a group, excel the boys in 
these measurements. 

All of these physical changes and many others that 
appear at the same time, like lengthening, thickening, 
ossification, and alterations in shape of bones; marked 
increase in breathing capacity accompanying enlarge- 
ment of the thoracic cavity, radical increase in the size 
and strength of the heart, appearance of facial hair in 
boys, the alteration in the voice of boys, known as 
"mutation" (usually a drop of about an octave in 
pitch), the enlargement of the pelvis and bust in girls — 
all of these physical changes are quite obviously closely 
connected with the advent of other well-known aspects 
of sex development in both sexes. The phenomena 
combine to signal the transformation from childhood 
to adult life. 

Just what alterations go on in the brain we have no 
precise means of knowing; but we do know that the de- 
velopments just indicated must be associated with some 
sort of corresponding modifications in the nervous sys- 
tem that controls the body, and again we do know that 



118 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

adolescent boys and girls do think and feel and talk in 
ways different from those of childhood, and that these 
changes, too, must be reflected in some sort of corre- 
sponding developments in the nervous system. 

In seeking to classify and understand these mental 
alterations it seems natural to expect that their ex- 
planation will be found in the same general principles 
that underlie the bodily alterations of the period; that 
is, that the psychological aspects of adolescence will be 
found to be manifestations, sometimes direct, often per- 
haps quite indirect, of the unfolding of the drama of 
sex. In fact, it is difficult to see any other explanation. 
The child is essentially an egoist, an individualist; he is 
moved to follow out his own desires; he is originally and 
naturally selfish (however much the careful training of 
parents and teachers may have overlaid or transformed 
his native bent); for him " self-preservation is the first 
law of nature." The expansion of the interest in sex at 
the time of puberty is indicative of the preparation 
nature is making for the individual to participate in the 
life of the race; for nature the preservation of the species 
is more important than the preservation of the indi- 
vidual. 

It becomes, therefore, important that interest in the 
opposite sex should arise, that love and courtship, with 
all their tremendous mental stimulation and their con- 
cern for others, should supplant the self-centred atti- 
tude of childhood. And thus it comes about that the 
highest forms of altruistic conduct — the development of 
respect for others, the seeking to act in such a manner 
as to secure the approbation of one's fellows, the out- 
pouring of sympathy, the yearning for the beautiful, 
the sacrifice of selfish satisfactions to promote the wel- 
fare of others — that all these and similar phases of men- 



THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 119 

tal and moral development, as well as such more obvi- 
ous and possibly less worthy manifestations as interest 
in the opposite sex, self-consciousness, "showing-ony' 
and interest in adornment, are to be understood and 
interpreted as manifestations of sex. Stanley Hall, to 
whom we owe so many of our present-day studies of 
adolescence, refers to the more remote or indirect mani- 
festations as the "long-circui tings " or " irradiations " of 
the sex instinct; other psychologists refer to them as 
"sublimations" of the sex interest. 

It will perhaps, then, be understood that the actual 
development of these sublimations is not always accom- 
plished or at least not effected as it should be. The 
problem is to make the strong instinctive tendencies 
that emerge at this period serve as motives for worthy 
conduct and not to permit them to become debased or 
debauched. The problem is to use the driving power of 
sex to socialize the individual. Evidently the problem 
is closely associated with the inculcation of ideals, and 
especially with the skilful utilization of the religious 
sentiments that seem so commonly to become a power- 
ful factor in the motives behind the conduct of youths 
and maidens in the mid-adolescent period. 

This problem of guiding the thoughts, sentiments, 
and ideals of boys and girls who are becoming young 
men and young women can hardly be dissociated from 
the closely related problem of guiding their physical 
development through the same period. Much interest 
has attached in recent years to the matter of instruction 
in the physiology and hygiene of sex. Only the stupid 
will deny the uncommon importance that attaches to 
this question; only the ultraprudish will declare that 
teachers and parents ought to avoid discussion of sex 
hygiene. 



120 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

Out of the maze of conflicting opinions we do discern 
a few general trends of agreement. Thus (i) it is evi- 
dent enough that all normal children have a perfectly 
natural curiosity about the facts of sex and that this 
curiosity leads them in early childhood to ask simple 
naive questions. 

(2) It is agreed by most persons who have thought 
over the matter at all carefully that parents ought to 
meet these early questions with equal simplicity and 
readiness to satisfy the curiosity, and that anything like 
prudish avoidance or repulsion of the child's queries 
tends to erect a most unwholesome barrier between 
parent and child, and to develop a sort of taboo about 
the whole subject that is distinctly undesirable and the 
source of many mental disturbances in after-years. 

(3) The " policy of silence," as some writers have 
termed it, is wholly indefensible in the light of the facts. 
Children uninformed or misinformed by their parents 
get information from others, usually from their play- 
mates, and in a most lamentable form. Lack of paren- 
tal instruction is responsible for endless worry, mostly 
quite unnecessary, on the part of boys and girls entering 
the period of puberty, and doubtless is responsible, too, 
for some measure of actual immorality, if not for some 
part in the calamitous spread of venereal diseases. 

(4) Ideally, parental instruction is to be desired. 
Practically many parents, whether through ignorance or 
false modesty or procrastination, fail to fulfil their obli- 
gations to their children, and the question that then 
arises — ought church or school to stand in loco parentis 
in these circumstances? is answered differently by differ- 
ent persons. So far as can be gathered, no systematic 
movement for bringing sex instruction under the gui- 
dance of the church can be discerned in this country. 



THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 121 

In some high schools, normal schools, and colleges there 
has been achieved real success in bringing these matters 
clearly and yet skilfully and inoffensively before the 
student body, usually by means of a few talks by some 
competent person before the two sexes separately, or 
by discussing the ethical and social aspects of sex in 
this manner and supplementing this presentation by 
informative instruction in connection with courses in 
physiology, zoology, botany, or general biology. 1 On 
the other hand, there have been reports of trials that 
were not so successful. A great deal depends upon the 
personality of the speaker and upon his sympathetic 
understanding of' the mental attitudes and the stock of 
ideas of the pupils before him. It would seem desirable, 
for instance, that no talks should be given by "outsid- 
ers'' unless the school authorities were provided with 
advance copy for editing or for rejection. Probably, 
also, it would be politic for school principals or super- 
intendents to enlist the co-operation of parents before- 
hand by means of conferences, parent-teachers' associa- 
tions, and the like, and then to make attendance of 
pupils at the school talks optional or by the request of 
parents. 

(5) We do not know yet just what topics ought to be 
included in an attempt at formal or informal instruc- 
tion. There is much debate, for instance, as to whether 

1 See, for instance, W. H. Eddy, "An Experiment in Teaching 
Sex Hygiene," Journ. of Educ. Psychol., 2, Oct., 191 1, 451-458; also 
W. S. Foster, "School Instruction in Matters of Sex," same, 440- 
450; and a symposium in Journ. of Educ, 75, March 21, 1912, 313- 
323. Further discussion of the content of school courses in matters 
of sex may be found in Clara Schmidt, "The Teaching of the Facts 
of Sex in the Public School," Pedag. Sent., 27, June, 1910, 229-241, 
while a proposed graded course of instruction is presented by 
B. Talmey, M.D., in his book, "Genesis; A Manual of Instruction 
of Children in Matters Sexual," New York, 19 10. 



122 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

the abnormal, the pathological aspects of sex ought to 
be touched upon, as to whether right conduct can be 
secured better by this variety of appeal to fear. Most 
persons are agreed that discussion of these phases of the 
problem ought to be deferred until perhaps the late 
high school period. There seems also to be considerable 
agreement upon the general principle that the impart- 
ing of the main facts as to sex might well come in the 
period before puberty when the child is not especially 
self-conscious, and when these matters seem to come 
up quite naturally in the course of other work in nature 
study, physiology, and hygiene. There is likewise con- 
siderable agreement upon the general principle that in 
high school instruction the main stress should be placed 
upon the ethical and social aspects of sex — such as the 
right relations of the sexes, the meaning of the family, 
of love, courtship and marriage, the dignity of mother- 
hood, etc. 

One of the tendencies of adolescence obviously closely 
associated with the sex instinct is the ripening into full 
function of the social instinct in its various ramifica- 
tions. As compared with their mates in the grade 
school, boys and girls of high school age are distinctly 
less self-centred, are more interested in others, are 
more likely to seek the society of others, are more pro- 
foundly affected by the opinions of others, are more 
prone to behave in such a way as to gain the good-will 
of others (especially of the opposite sex), and are more 
ready to give up their own personal satisfaction in order 
to help another. All these shifts of attitude are evi- 
dently of far-reaching significance for the mental and 
moral development of their possessors, and of corre- 
spondingly great significance for the teacher who would 
seek to mould this development. We say "seek to mould 



THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 123 

this development" because, although the shifts of atti- 
tude just cited are undoubtedly instinctive at bottom, 
and therefore the common property of all human beings 
at these ages, they are not always fully accomplished; 
human instincts are more or less modified by training 
and environmental conditions generally. Consequently, 
the primary problem of adolescent training, as I see it, 
is to supervise and guarantee, as it were, that this fun- 
damental transition from the self-centred mind of child- 
hood to the socialized mind of adulthood is properly 
effected. It is worth our while to consider some of the 
methods by which this realization by the individual of 
his place in a social system, this development of the 
sentiment of duty and responsibility, can be brought 
about. 

One of the signs or symptoms of the awakening social 
tendency is the greater tendency toward the formation 
of groups of all sorts — of clubs, societies, unions, leagues, 
organizations, and what not. The adolescent takes 
kindly to the idea of banding together for some com- 
mon purpose, whether it be recreative or athletic or 
philanthropic or merely social in the narrower sense. 
Of course boys and girls do things in groups when they 
are children, but most of the active and persistent group 
activities of children are made for them and largely run 
for them by their elders. In the prepubertal stage 
there is hardly a boy who doesn't belong to some sort of 
spontaneously organized "gang." This gang is usually 
a more or less well-organized, even though transient, 
organization for carrying on athletics or some other form 
of physical activity, rarely for the sort of literary, artis- 
tic, or philanthropic activity that grown-ups organize 
societies for. These spontaneously organized societies, 
especially the rudimentary ones organized by boys, 



124 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

have been rather carefully investigated, and numerous 
valuable ideas for the assistance of adults in superin- 
tending the development of social tendencies have been 
derived from the investigations. 1 It has been shown, 
for instance, that boys and girls cannot be handled to 
the best advantage in the same organization, that boys 
drawn from different social strata do not fuse well, that 
even skilful leaders cannot always maintain these or- 
ganizations for indefinitely long periods, that societies 
formed for serious moral purposes ought not to have 
this aspect too prominent, but, rather, supplementary 
to a programme appealing to physical activity, with a 
reasonable amount of mystery, ceremony, and secrecy. 

Secondary-school teachers, as teachers, are concerned 
in these social developments of adolescence when they 
take the form of organizations within the school itself. 
It would be unusual, indeed, to find an American high 
school of any size that did not boast of several organiza- 
tions — athletic teams, class societies, musical clubs, 
camera clubs, walking clubs, school papers, etc. For a 
summary of studies of these organizations we cannot do 
better than refer to a report of a committee of the Mas- 
sachusetts Council of Education, 2 T. C. Whitcomb, 
chairman, from which the following conclusions may be 
quoted : 

"i. Class organizations, literary societies, musical 
organizations, art clubs, and school papers are helpful 

1 See, for example, Winifred Buck, "Boys' Self- Governing Clubs" 
(New York, 1903); W. B. Forbush, "The Boy Problem" (4th ed., 
Philadelphia, 1902); J. A. Puffer, "The Boy and His Gang" (Bos- 
ton, 1912); H. Sheldon, "The Institutional Activities of American 
Children," Amer. Journ. of Psychol., 9, 1898, 425-448. 

2 "Report on Organizations among High-School Pupils," 69th 
Annual Rept. Brd. Educ., Mass., 1904-1905. (Published Boston, 
1906, as Public Doc. No. 2, pp. 178-198.) 



THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 125 

to the pupils and a benefit to the school, provided they 
are under the oversight of the school authorities. 

"2. Class committees for the purposes partly com- 
mercial (class-pins, photographs, dances, etc.) are espe- 
cially in need of the most exacting regulations. 

"3. While more than half of the athletic associations 
which include and direct the varied athletic activities of 
the school are under the supervision, more or less com- 
plete, of the teachers of the schools, the right to control 
has been assumed rather than assured. Under this 
assumed control the participation in athletics is condi- 
tioned upon rank in scholarship. 

"4. A large majority of the teachers reporting con- 
sider athletics a benefit to the schools. Sixty-five per 
cent believe that both scholarship and discipline are 
improved. But all agree that this is only true when all 
such matters are under the control of the school authori- 
ties." 

A special instance of the problem of organizations in 
the high school is set by the secret society. Partly in 
imitation of the college fraternity, partly as a natural 
expression of the social tendencies of the period, there 
has developed in many secondary schools a series of 
secret societies, both for boys and for girls, that have 
presented difficulties of no small degree to the admin- 
istrative authorities. Every study of the high school 
fraternity that has been conducted by unprejudiced in- 
vestigators has revealed a strong opposition to them on 
the part of boards of education, principals, and teach- 
ers. It is felt that these societies are essentially antag- 
onistic to the democratic spirit of the American high 
school, and that there is no real need for them that 
cannot be met in some better way. In schools where 
they have not gone so far as directly to antagonize the 



126 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

school authorities and to disrupt discipline, or have not 
degenerated into sources of positive moral damage, they 
have at least been prone to interfere with school poli- 
tics, to create class, race, or social prejudices, and to 
interfere by their social functions with the work of their 
members as students. 

When action has been taken against their continu- 
ance by school authorities, the fraternities have usually 
declared their innocence in these accusations or have 
contended boldly that their affairs were no concern of 
the school since their meetings were held off the school 
grounds and outside of school hours. But legal deci- 
sions, as, for example, that by the Supreme Court of the 
State of Washington, have fully upheld the rights of the 
school authorities to control or to abolish the secret 
societies, and there are now so many states in which 
their existence has been outlawed that the exigency of 
this particular problem has been much reduced. 

In general, the group-forming tendencies of the high 
school period, however, are valuable assets to the 
teacher, and they need to be conserved and utilized 
rather than thwarted. Attempts have been made in 
many schools, in this connection, to turn the group ten- 
dencies to account in the recitation and in the general 
activities of the school. There have been, for instance, 
more or less successful attempts to "socialize" the reci- 
tation. In some types of school work, such as history, 
civil government, and perhaps some phases of labora- 
tory work, it appears feasible for a skilful teacher to 
proceed by what the college student terms a " seminary " 
method. The main topic is divided into a series of 
assignments, and individual pupils look up and report 
upon these assignments while the remainder are sup- 
posed to listen intelligently, and afterward to discuss 



THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 127 

the report critically and to summarize it on demand. 
It is evident to any one who has tried this method, even 
with mature and highly interested college students, 
that it has certain advantages — appealing to co-opera- 
tion, stimulating competition, encouraging critical lis- 
tening — but that these may be outweighed by the un- 
evenness of the contributions made by the different 
class members, the failure to secure unity and co- 
ordination, and the tendency to consume undue amounts 
of time. 1 

Somewhat analogous points may be made with regard 
to utilizing the social tendencies of the adolescent period 
for assistance in carrying on the administrative, and 
especially the disciplinary, phases of high school work. 
Several years ago there was great interest, for instance, 
in the "school city" plan. In substance, each pupil 
became a citizen in a community, divided into wards 
(the several classrooms) and equipped with all the 
ordinary paraphernalia of city government, mayor, al- 
dermen, police, board of health, and what not. To these 
officials, elected in a form that followed as closely as 
might be the ordinary mechanism of city elections, was 
turned over all, or nearly all, the ordinary problems of 
school operation. This plan, and many others more or 
less similar to it in spirit, seems to work out well when 
new but to die out when the novelty has worn off. In 
most self-governing school plans, experience shows, 
oversevere penalties are inflicted, jealousy is aroused, 
enmities arise between pupils, and what advantage may 
lie in the real-enough training in the details of civil gov- 
ernment is probably counterbalanced by the equal op- 
portunities for training in petty "graft" and cheap poli- 

1 For detailed discussion, consult C. A. Scott, "Social Education," 
especially chaps. VI and VII; also J. Dewey, "School and Society." 



128 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

tics. The best plans appear to be those in which the 
teachers retain dominant control. 

It has been the fashion to ascribe to the period of 
adolescence not only an awakening of these instinctive 
tendencies that we have been discussing, but also an 
awakening of the senses: sight is alleged to grow keener; 
likewise hearing and the other senses. More careful 
scrutiny of the facts shows us, however, that this so- 
called awakening is not primarily a sharpening of the 
senses as such, but rather an augmentation in the feel- 
ings that are set in play by these senses; an increase, in 
other words, in the interest that is taken in things seen, 
heard, felt, smelled, and tasted. A further factor in the 
"awakening" is surely the broader point of view, the 
wider intellectual horizon, of the adolescent; phases and 
aspects of life that are uninteresting or even quite un- 
noticed by the child take on meaning for the maturer 
mind of the adolescent. 

As an illustration of this process of mental develop- 
ment reference may be made to the various studies of 
the growth of ideals as related to age and sex. Numer- 
ous investigators have studied children's ideals by get- 
ting oral or written answers to such questions as: "What 
would you most like to do when you grow up?" 
"Whom do you most want to resemble and why?" 
"If you could have your choice of any position in any 
imaginary new city, what would it be?" The results 
show that younger children almost always name as 
their ideal some person well known to them and their 
immediate environment — their parents or relatives or 
their teachers, whereas just about the dawn of puberty 
there is a significant widening in the range and variety 
of ideals, so that characters in public life, in fiction, and 
outside of the immediate environment in general, tend 



THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 129 

to replace the ideals of childhood. At the same time 
corresponding alteration takes place in the range and 
variety of occupational ideals. Thus, occupations se- 
lected as indicative of wealth, beauty, and social eclat 
tend in adolescence to be replaced by occupations char- 
acterized by altruistic, philanthropic, and humanitarian 
motives. All these alterations in ideals are more evi- 
dent in the replies of boys than in those of girls. Sev- 
eral investigators have bemoaned the tendency of girls 
to name masculine ideals (boys rarely name feminine 
personages) and have suggested that teachers of girls 
ought to make a special effort to acquaint them with 
the lives of noble women who best exemplify the pe- 
culiar virtues of their sex. 

The writer has himself been struck with the very 
great importance that may attach to these alterations in 
ideals, especially in their effect upon the choosing of a 
vocation. Evidently there may be danger in both direc- 
tions; a boy of real ability who leaves the high school 
because carried away by some transient longing to tend 
a soda-fountain may ruin a possible career as a civil 
engineer of merit, whereas a boy of mediocre or poor 
ability who persists doggedly through high school and 
college because fired by an ideal of service to mankind 
through the ministry, may waste his own efforts as well 
as the money and time of friends and teachers in a vain 
effort to attain to a calling for which he is really unfitted. 
Every teacher knows these instances of overambitious 
ideals; they arouse one's sympathy, but they certainly 
do not make for the general efficiency of our social 
organization. 

The adolescent alteration of ideals is perhaps only one 
outward evidence of the general inward alteration of 
point of view to which we have already alluded — that 



130 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

is, the general tendency to remake conduct on a basis 
that shall permit of consideration of oneself in one's re- 
lation to others rather than merely in relation to one's 
self alone. This shift from egoism to altruism, if those 
terms do not exaggerate it too much, is very neatly 
brought out in the characteristic religious phenomena 
of the period. Every one who has been observant 
knows that adolescence is pre-eminently the time of 
religious conversion. Figures show that a considerable 
part, doubtless more than half, of all conversions oc- 
cur during the ages fifteen to seventeen. This fact 
is hardly attributable to an accident; it denotes the 
operation of some definite factors, and these factors evi- 
dently relate to the general underlying physical trans- 
formation that makes adolescence what it is. The point 
is, then, that whatever be the creed embraced by the 
convert and whatever be the particular variety of con- 
version that he exhibits, and whether this be gradual or 
sudden, and whether it be " conventional" (in the sense 
of following the general form prescribed or implied by 
the religious body that has been influential in bringing 
it about) or unconventional — in any event the real ker- 
nel of the experience is just this rearrangement of atti- 
tude toward the relation of self to others that we have 
already mentioned as constituting the kernel of the 
mental alterations of the period in general. Looked at 
in this way, religious conversion is really simply the out- 
ward symbolizing of the inner experience that is, or 
should be, natural to all normal adolescents. The great 
contribution of religion to life might be found, accord- 
ing to this view, in supervising or " guaranteeing, " 
as it were, the moral regeneration that is so much 
desired. The very emotionality of religious experience 
is doubtless of peculiar value in this connection, for the 



THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 131 

stronger and more all-pervading the sentiments that 
attend this moral birth, the surer and more complete is 
the process. 

One of the special problems raised in religious peda- 
gogy in this connection is: what ought to be done to 
minimize or avoid the doubts and struggles that many 
adolescents pass through, especially in the later years of 
adolescence, in trying to harmonize the conflicting views 
of life that they have absorbed at various stages of their 
mental and moral development? These difficulties are 
ofttimes quite serious, particularly in the case of young 
men and young women of the more thoughtful sort, espe- 
cially when their education is continued through the 
college. The problem usually arises when the widening 
of the intellectual horizon discloses facts and principles 
that seem quite at variance with the notions of things 
that were imbibed in childhood, especially with notions 
about the general plan of the universe and about the 
religious views of childhood — the nature of evil, the 
probability of life after death, the possibility of mira- 
cles, the efficacy of prayer, etc. There are some who 
believe this sort of reconstruction is inevitable, and that 
the best thing to do is to encourage the doubter to dis- 
cuss his difficulties freely with some older and wiser per- 
son; there are others who believe that reconstruction 
would be unnecessary if the early religious teachings 
were less dogmatically, less literally, presented, or even 
subordinated to the simple inculcation of the funda- 
mentals of good conduct. Doubtless there can be laid 
down no rules that would apply in detail to all cases, 
In answering the analogous question: ought we to tell 
our children of Santa Claus and permit them to discover 
later that the whole story is but a myth ? we find that 
some children are merely amused when the truth is 



132 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

revealed, whereas others are really appalled at what 
they deem the deliberate falsehood of their parents. 

Another special problem associated with the mental 
and moral awakening of adolescence relates to the ap- 
pearance of what some persons refer to as the period of 
"sowing wild oats." It certainly does seem that most 
boys, at least, before they " settle down" as reliable and 
steady-going adults, do pass through a period of more 
or less lawless conduct, or perhaps break out now and 
then in wilful misconduct of the most exasperating 
sort. 1 Criminologists speak of "adolescent criminality " 
and sometimes make what seem to the writer quite far- 
fetched assertions about the various "manias" charac- 
teristic of adolescence. It would seem that the general 
situation in which the adolescent finds himself is suffi- 
cient to account for most of this "crime." In the na- 
ture of the case contact of individual with individual is 
widened, control by the home is less stringent and con- 
tinuous, and the temptation to "try something once," 
just to get the experience, is obviously increased. 
Moreover, there may be financial or social needs to be 
met that tempt to minor acts of an unlawful nature. 
Add to this the internal condition — the passing through 
the period of mental and moral readjustment when old 
sanctions of conduct are felt to be "silly" and childish, 
while the newer ones have not been completely devel- 
oped — and we would appear to have the conditions 
under which most of the misconduct of adolescence 
arises. A goodly fraction of the downright cases of per- 
sistent and repeated criminal offenses turn out to be 
committed by persons of subnormal mentality who 
really, that is to say, don't know enough to foresee the 

1 See Swift, "Some Criminal Tendencies of Boyhood," Ped. Sem. t 
8, 1901, 65-91, for typical illustrations. 



THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 133 

outcome of their behavior or to control their conduct by 
the higher social motives. One of the most obvious 
general principles for affecting the reformation of the 
adolescent whose conduct is antisocial is, then, to try 
to develop within him those sentiments that are summed 
up in the words "duty" and "responsibility." If these 
sentiments cannot be aroused, lawlessness may be ex- 
pected, and the individual is usually destined to become 
a social nuisance. 

Attempts have been made frequently to outline modi- 
fications of the secondary-school curriculum to accord 
better with the psychological aspects of the adolescent 
period. In many respects these attempts have been less 
effective than hoped for, because we are still ignorant of 
much that we should know of the intellectual develop- 
ment of the period. A sample instance is seen in vari- 
ous proposals for the modification of high school science 
to fit the needs and interests of high school students. 
Thus, in Hall's "Adolescence" (vol. II, chap. XII) will 
be found an extended argument against the prevailing 
type of instruction in this field as being too technical, 
too quantitative, too much restricted to the logical pres- 
entation of pure science, and too much dominated by 
the college entrance demands. For this would be substi- 
tuted especially popular and applied aspects of modern 
science, with considerable insistence on the lives and 
work of the men who have discovered and applied the 
great ideas of science. In this instance scarcely any 
one doubts that high school boys are interested in popu- 
lar science, and that most of them would prefer to dab- 
ble with kites, photography, wireless apparatus, and the 
raising of guinea-pigs than to solve equations illustrat- 
ing the laws of action of wind on surfaces, or learn the 
formulas underlying the use of a developer, or seek to 



134 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

understand the detail of Mendel's law, but the question 
might still be raised: may not the more rigid, logical, 
quantitative, systematic presentation of the older text- 
books retain some merit when we look forward to the 
ultimate outcomes of the pursuit of knowledge in the 
secondary school? These and countless similar prob- 
lems as to choice of subject-matter and method of pres- 
entation cannot be settled forthwith by inquiring merely: 
what would boys and girls prefer to be taught and in 
what way? What we really need is a series of educa- 
tional experiments in which the merits of different bod- 
ies of subject-matter and different methods of teaching 
each of these bodies are ascertained by trial under 
proper conditions, and with a wide range of criteria of 
excellence in mind. One criterion, and possibly the 
foremost, would, of course, be: how well does this sub- 
ject and this method of teaching it seem to fit the mental 
needs and interests of the average secondary-school stu- 
dent? 

Another illustration of the same problem is found in 
the problem of choosing a foreign language for the first- 
year work of the high school student. Latin has by 
long custom been generally accorded the place of honor, 
yet many psychologists believe that there is a distinct 
emergence at about the age of fourteen of interest in 
spoken language — distinct enough, at any rate, as to 
make many boys and girls want to "pick up" a smat- 
tering of familiarity with some tongue other than the 
vernacular. Since little or no stress is laid on the use 
of Latin in conversation, might it not be much better 
to begin, say, with French, and thus utilize the interest 
in speaking a new language? "But," we may answer, 
" French is easier if taken after Latin, and Latin affords 
a fine chance to drill the student in sentence construc- 
tion and grammar, much of which he failed to learn in 



THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD 135 

the grades." Here, again, why not make a crucial ex- 
periment and measure the results in every way that we 
can devise? 

A final sample problem: does what we know of ado- 
lescence indicate that boys and girls should be educated 
in the same school and in the same studies, or not ? No 
reflection is needed to understand that this problem is 
a complex one; so much depends upon conditions. For 
the average small community two high schools, one for 
each sex, are out of the question; even in most cities the 
high schools meet geographical needs and cannot be 
used for sex segregation. Shall we, then, use the same 
building but different subjects? Or, if the same sub- 
jects, shall the sexes recite in different sections? Or 
shall the course of study be the same in some parts and 
different in other parts? If so, which parts shall be 
different? 

This is not the place to try to answer these questions 
lib detail. It may be pointed out, however, that the 
notion that prevailed not so long ago that girls were in- 
capable of keeping pace with boys in their high school 
studies has been exploded quite completely; on the 
contrary, the average scholarship is almost invari- 
ably found to be better in girls than in boys (possibly 
because the girls are more docile or more interested or 
less distracted by outside appeals or merely possessed 
with somewhat more retentive memories). 

Again, it may be pointed out that not too much stress 
need to be laid on the notion — fairly prevalent, I think 
— that girls tend to suffer in physical development if 
forced to take the same work as boys and at the boys' 
pace. It may be admitted that as a group girls are 
more apt to worry about their school work and are more 
incited by competition for grades and promotion. The 
"grinds" in most schools are oftener found among the 



136 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

girls. It may be admitted, also, that the monthly 
physiological disturbances to which girls are subject 
render them more exposed than boys to physical dam- 
age from overstudy. But, on the other hand, most high 
school teachers seem agreed that these cases in which, 
to use Huxley's celebrated phrase, we "spoil a good 
mother to make a poor grammarian," are pretty excep- 
tional, and that far oftener girls, and boys, too, who 
break down in health during their secondary school 
work have simply paid the penalty for breaking the 
rules of hygiene outside the school. Late hours, social 
excesses, pampered appetites, and the zeal of misguided 
parents in overburdening their children with accessory 
tasks would appear to account for the development of 
most cases of neurasthenia and general fatigue in the 
high school student body. 

Finally, it is evident that the determination of the 
degree of differentiation between the work of boys and 
of girls is in part a sociological question. Much de- 
pends upon the ultimate career of each sex. Thus, in 
so far as the natural and normal centre of interest and 
activity of woman would seem to be the home, it ap- 
pears to most persons self-evident that instruction in 
the multifarious aspects of home-making would be par- 
ticularly pertinent to young women. Likewise, in so 
far as women are likely to share the interests and activi- 
ties of men, it would appear equally self-evident that 
they need to be versed in these activities, too. 

Whatever may be the ultimate decision on the dif- 
ferentiation of the curriculums offered the two sexes, 
the experience of most colleges and of many high schools 
indicates that on the whole better work is done by both 
sexes when they recite in separate classes. 



THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 1 

The junior high school movement is sweeping the 
country. It marks a general educational reawakening, 
renaissance, reconstruction. This association has made 
it first a field of investigation, then a propaganda and 
slogan, now a constructive programme for development. 
The department of superintendence has embodied it in its 
resolutions. The United States Bureau stands commit- 
ted to it. Many state departments are making it state- 
wide. Large cities are adopting it wholesale. Small 
cities in impressive numbers and with impressive admin- 
istrative originality are making their own ingenious ad- 
justments to the idea. Surveyors of all kinds can think 
of no recommendable school policy that does not specifi- 
cally incorporate junior high school features. Local city 
politics finds it useful, popular. All sorts of propagan- 
dists like it. Co-operating agencies affiliating with public 
schools (library associations, for example) see in it some- 
thing promising. University departments of education 
and normal schools and all other agencies for preparing 
teachers are finding new aspects of professional prepara- 
tion for this type of teaching, new educational ideals 
toward which to point the intending teacher. Text- 
book houses with the expected enterprise are announc- 
ing new junior high school series of text-books, heralding, 
they claim, an education with new and invigorating in- 
gredients. Teachers' employment agencies have begun 
to use the new term and to recommend for positions 
those with the newly required qualifications. Standing 

1 Address before the general session of National Education Asso- 
ciation, July 6, 1 916, New York City. 

137 



138 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

"expert" commissions of inquiry (your own national 
commission on Reorganization of Secondary Education 
and the North Central Association Commission on Unit 
Courses and Curricula) are preparing large areas, in 
fact the whole country, for the intricate kinds of inner 
readjustments the adoption of this fundamental change 
in school policy calls for. There are now educational 
courses in our colleges and normal schools in the junior 
high school problems, given by "experts." There is a 
literature, a terminology, a lingo, a cult, an educational 
philosophy, an educational party. 

Recently a well-known educator was invited to 
address a state teachers' association by debating the 
affirmative of the proposition that junior high schools 
could be made an integral part of our public-school sys- 
tem. He replied that he would debate this question 
anywhere if there could be found any one who would 
consent to take the other side. One was found to make 
the sacrifice. They still exist. What is more difficult 
to find is their real objections to the fundamental educa- 
tional ideals we have come to associate with, indeed to 
identify with, the junior high school idea. 

There are, however, we must continue to realize, two 
distinct educational parties with genuinely opposed plat- 
forms — unlike, you will notice, our present political par- 
ties. One party banks on tradition as such. It thinks 
our educational history has developed by some inevitable 
law of growth, that it now represents an institution 
possessed of virtues which come from such bona-fide 
and vast experimentation as has characterized that of 
our educational machinery. This party is historically 
minded. What we have represents about what we 
should have. The fate of schools is in the hands of des- 
tiny. The architecture of our present administrative 



THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 139 

structure, therefore, has something sacredly American 
about it. This party is conservative and has seen by 
experience just what ordinary school-keeping is and 
just how difficult and almost hopeless a thing it is 
actually to renovate the whole plant. They, too, know 
the educational machinery of the other national educa- 
tional systems. They are impressed with the fact that 
these great and so-called civilized nations have not ac- 
cepted the sorts of educational innovations and astound- 
ing extensions and differentiations of functions which 
such a fanciful conception as the junior high school sug- 
gests — and really means to its proponents. Democracy 
to this party means as much democracy as, in the judg- 
ment of its leaders, the teachers and the scholars and 
other participants in the educational process can stand 
without practice. They start with the school machinery 
and, thinking in its terms, allow as much of democracy 
as its terms will connote without too much stretching. 

There is another party. This second party begins 
with democracy and its needs, and thinks into this social 
and industrial setting just the kind of education it seems 
to require. This party is made up of the more radically 
minded temperamentally. They think with amazing 
confidence of what the educative process is capable of 
becoming. As with their modern conception of democ- 
racy, so they start with a modern conception of the 
psychology of educative processes, that they are expres- 
sive processes, that knowledge is a real process, a real 
method of expression, and hence that all school exer- 
cises, such as reciting, studying, student activities, 
auditorium performances, shop trainings, laboratory 
technics, " projects," " socialized" class-meetings, and 
other new and more intimate sorts of exercises with the 
supposedly hopelessly academicized "humanity" sub- 



140 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

jects must smack of realness. Thinking thus of the 
entire educative process, this party tends to think of 
new and novel and often, also, confusing ways of giving 
opportunity to these new demands — ways that make 
the old type of formal school-keeping itself look un- 
natural. The junior high school is their opportunity. 

With the new political and civic ideal and the new 
psychological goals we have this party actually adopt- 
ing a new philosophy of life, an "educational realism,' ' 
a new scale of values, a new theory of what constitutes 
reality. Theological dogma and, in this case, literary 
formalism cease to be the creators, or carriers of our 
realities. Politics and science and industry and war 
make a new realm of values, point a new goal of educa- 
tion. 

With this the new party has also become imbued with 
the notion that our ideal of universal education is low, 
and our method of allowing a wrong selective principle 
to work in creating an 8th-grade dead-line is un-Ameri- 
can. This new party rejects all European notions of 
the necessarily selective character of secondary educa- 
tion. This party wipes out every distinction between 
elementary or common school education and public 
secondary school education. It gives in the whole his- 
tory of the world a new definition of secondary education. 
It creates a junior high school transition stage which will 
tide over the gap which has baffled all dreamers of uni- 
versal education since the day-dreams of Horace Mann. 
With this new ideal of a new universality and non- 
selective education reaching beyond the 8th grade have 
come economic conditions which make practically im- 
mediately realizable this pushing upward and this liber- 
alizing and enriching of the common school's instruc- 
tional programme. 



THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 141 

One other factor operating in the minds of this new 
party regarding the immediate possibility of graduating 
from the junior high school rather than from the 8th 
grade as the rule is the realization that in academic 
achievement the American boy at the end of the 9th 
grade has not by two years done the equivalent of the 
French or German boy who finishes the eighth year in 
the common school. 

On the other end of the reorganized secondary school 
in America is to be noted the fact that in the present 
stage of our educational development the public high 
school must take on for the state's necessity some pro- 
fessional or vocational functions such as teacher train- 
ing, practical engineering, etc. All this upper extension 
is bound up with the junior high school unit, as it is 
supposed to function in the new complete system. This 
new party possesses educational courage to the point, 
perhaps, of recklessness, stands for experimental meth- 
ods to the point of extravagance, for the conscious exer- 
cise of new mental processes and for the vigorous exten- 
sion to new boundaries of its field of service. 

What is meant by the junior high school ? One writer 
thinks the junior high school is a school made up of the 
upper grades (7 th and 8th) and the lowest grade (9th) 
of the present high school, and " organized after the 
plan of a high school as regards curriculum, nature 
and method of recitation, instruction and supervision." 
This, the author says, is the "real junior high school — 
the school of to-morrow." Another says it is a school 
of these same grades or even of the 7 th and 8 th grades 
"which offers regular high school subjects" and also 
"prevocational education" whose purpose of existence 
is "congregation and segregation"; congregation from 
many surrounding elementary schools and segregation 



142 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

from them into a new atmosphere where indeed, for 
educational purposes, different groups of these pupils 
can be given different trainings in certain subjects. 
Neither of these definitions is at all adequate to the 
variety of junior high schools in existence, to the distin- 
guishing purpose of junior high schools, or to what 
should characterize the ideal junior high school. De- 
fining the junior high school in the narrow but more 
nearly correct sense as a special institution, we should 
say that, in intent, it is that portion or department of 
the public-school system above the 6th elementary 
grade, including the 7th and 8th, and usually the 9th 
also, which is organized under a distinctive internal 
management with a special principal and teaching staff, 
or under a six-year secondary school department divided 
into a junior and a senior high school of three years 
each, with one general management. Such a school in 
these first three years provides for departmental teach- 
ing, partially differentiated curriculums, for prevoca- 
tional instruction and for systems of educational advice 
and guidance and for supervised study. No definition 
which merely says it is an institution which shifts the 
7 th and 8th grade boys from elementary school to high 
school properly represents the ideal of this school. 

This is after all, however, but a narrow and technical 
definition of the junior high school. The adequate defi- 
nition must be in terms of the profound meaning of the 
movement — if it is profound. The junior high school in 
this deeper sense suggests the breaking up of our ele- 
mentary-secondary public-school system into smaller, 
more intelligible, and less unwieldy administrative and 
curriculum units. It is but a rediscovery of what Euro- 
pean nations, in their more intensive cultivation of the 
restricted and selected field of secondary education, 



THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 143 

have found to be an administratively and pedagogically 
necessary arrangement. Thinking from the point of 
view of American democracy, we have first thought all 
into the secondary system as a matter of citizen's right. 
We have not thought yet sufficiently of how to group 
and adjust our administrative machinery and instruc- 
tional programme to them now that we have them 
enrolled. European school-builders and curriculum- 
makers, thinking not of how to populate secondary 
schools but how to select, have had their genius chal- 
lenged not with a condition of democracy but with 
the problem of how best to organize logically, and 
hence economically, the various subject-matters offered 
throughout the twelve years of the complete selective 
secondary school period. They are ahead of us, there- 
fore, in economic methods of breaking up into curricu- 
lum units the twelve-year stretch of education which we 
in America wish to make as nearly universal as possible. 
The French "cycle" scheme for curriculum organization 
represents an established principle of curriculum con- 
struction which the junior high school promoters have 
been quick to adopt in theory. To effectively practise 
this fundamental principle will take time. A reconcep- 
tion of subject-matter of public education in terms of 
one six-year elementary functioning unit, one interme- 
diate three-year transition period, partaking in content, 
method, administration, and school atmosphere of both 
the elementary and the secondary, and one three-year 
period of genuinely secondary work, is fundamental in- 
deed. Nothing less than this is the real meaning of the 
junior high school. It is no wonder that the courageous 
who have accepted the educational challenge of this 
opportunity are floundering. 

Despite these bewildering and often vague aspects of 



144 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

the movement as a whole we are already able to draw 
an attractive picture of the modern junior high school 
which is to be. 

It is the American common school breaking into the 
secondary field. To appreciate the democratic signifi- 
cance of this we have but to imagine the Folkschule 
graduate invited to go ahead in the Gymnasium. 

The pupil population of the junior high school will 
include not only those now in 7th and 8th and 9th 
grades, but all of these ages now "overage" in the ele- 
mentary six grades and all over fourteen who for any 
reason are out of school. It is a pupil democracy. 
Russia has the most advanced stage to-day, and she has 
the most elective and exclusive literary cliques. She 
also has the fewest theatres and audiences, and the few- 
est elementary and secondary pupils — all drawn from 
the upper classes. The Great General Public in our 
country in education, as in drama, pays the piper, and 
its pressing needs must call the tune— ragtime till it can 
be refined into Beethoven. So the Great General Pub- 
lic is now dominating the schools. It is taking over sec- 
ondary education as well as elementary. With it, of 
course, must come fundamental changes, broadside re- 
adjustments. Our clientele has at last become this very 
same great, new, eager, childlike, tasteless, standardless, 
honest, crude "General Public." As for blaming any- 
body — for the schoolmaster at least it is poor fun to 
blame such a great primal force as democracy. So 
much for the pupil population of our junior high school. 

Its material plant has not been reduced to one type. 
However, these buildings are being planned for strictly 
junior high school purposes. Especially are they being 
so built as to emphasize flexibility in the administering 
of instruction, shop facilities for prevocational education 



THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 145 

of all varieties, physical education, general business 
fundamentals of both skill and information, concrete 
acquaintance with the world of fine and home arts, 
auditorium and directed study facilities, etc. The pro- 
portionate space given to shops, kitchens, cafeteria, print- 
ing equipments, laboratories, gymnasiums, swimming- 
pools, assembly-rooms, real junior high school libraries 
and museums is much greater than one finds in the 
ordinary school-buildings. There must be a junior 
high school architecture. These buildings must be also 
community-centre plants of a unique sort, not parallel- 
ing the senior high school functions in these respects. 
In addition to these features of the material plant we 
may expect to find increasingly art rooms and spacious 
grounds and other appointments in keeping with this 
critical three-year unit in the reorganized public-school 
system. 

The school atmosphere will not be either elementary or 
secondary, as* we now know it. It will be a junior high 
school atmosphere or it will be a failure. It either has 
its unique character and tone or it is but a sham solu- 
tion of a very vexed problem of public-school reform. 

We shall have better teachers and better supervision and 
more men teachers and a more pointed, focussed curricu- 
lum. More men will become junior high school princi- 
pals, and there will be a more nearly divided teaching 
staff on the lines of sex. Starting a junior high school 
creates a situation calling for a selection of high-grade 
teachers to whom to intrust such an institutional ex- 
periment in a system of education. Better salaries will 
figure, broader training will be at a premium, years of 
experience will count, and those with deepest under- 
standing of youth will be selected. Comparative edu- 
cational results and records of all sorts will result. 



146 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

The six-grade elementary units in buildings to them- 
selves will now be cleared of all but the young children, 
their single curriculum purpose will be clarified and their 
obstacles in the way of average pupils will be out of the 
way. This policy of "lifting" the overage from the six- 
grade elementary school will have a wholesome effect 
upon all entrance requirements standards for admission 
to the next higher stage. Likewise those who have 
spent three years in the junior high school with its now 
increased exploration facilities and flexible curriculum 
offerings will and should naturally expect to be passed 
on to something in the senior high school department 
which is more specifically designed to fit them for some 
more definite sort of life-work. Then possibly even the 
colleges may get from all this a suggestion of an educa- 
tional guiding principle for making their own admission 
requirements. 

As to subjects and single courses, new and old, I have 
already referred and to progressive text-book makers 
who are even now on the job. Every single subject now 
found in the three grades concerned will undergo — in- 
deed, is already undergoing — transformation. New 
principles of organizing so-called general courses in all 
the main lines of junior high school work, English, mathe- 
matics, general science, general social science, foreign 
languages, practical arts, commercial work — all presage 
an educational era for the making of better pedagogi- 
cally constructed "units of instruction," topical and 
problem goals of intermediate education which is going 
surely to point us to new meanings of educational 
method. 

As to curriculum organization of our courses we are 
at least now to have design where there was none. 
Some one has said what he misses in 7 th and 8 th grade 
work is design. The junior high school organization 



THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 147 

creates a situation in which instruction without curricu- 
lum purpose will be painful when in evidence. In short, 
we are forced to search for bases for our schemes of 
training. Here we may have curriculum differentiation 
or we may not. We may differentiate on vocational 
grounds, or on those purely of individual differences, or 
on none at all. The thing is that we have got to face 
the problem of whether we can point our instruction of 
these grades in any definable direction. Indeed, cur- 
riculum differentiation is the crucial issue, whatever we 
do about it. We have already in our crudely conceived 
prevocational education begun to adjust our instruc- 
tion in this prudent way to some sort of inevitable in- 
dustrial test to come in the life of the junior high school 
pupil, saving him all the while from narrow specializa- 
tion. Already, also, we have become increasingly con- 
vinced, from our crude scales and tests, of the consistent 
evidences of the inherent and universal natural differ- 
entiation among these children. No "common ele- 
ments" can produce like effects. Here it takes uncom- 
mon elements to produce similar effects. Future prob- 
able careers suggest some flexibility in our courses; this 
relatively constant proportion of poor, medium, and supe- 
rior students reinforces the suggestion. 

A mere tinkering with 7th and 8th grade subjects in 
the old environment and with an unchanged teaching 
staff and supervision cannot do what we already know 
must be done. These internal matters of educational 
reorganization offer opportunities which must not be 
squandered. The psychological value of this junior 
high school is that it provides just this favorable new 
situation for seriously conceived plans closely related to 
a clear educational philosophy of administration. If 
the junior school is airything it is the three-year section 
of our public-school system, which, with its newly de- 



148 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

veloped types of " generalized " subject-matter, " proj- 
ect" and other like methods of teaching, democratic 
and free policy of school management, and intimate and 
intensive study of the individualities of pupils, seeks to 
direct pupils in finding themselves by exercising their 
various traits, exploiting their various aptitudes, and 
making possible intelligent choice of any special sort of 
definite training which may be followed in the senior 
high school or in higher educational institutions. It is 
our clumsy, crude, and still more or less vague but yet 
unmistakable attempt to shunt our educational ma- 
chinery during this particular three-year period into the 
field of diagnosing and consciously exercising, by means 
of more various and more liberally conceived kinds of 
trainings, the individualities of pupils. 

Into this picture of the modern junior high school, in 
addition to these larger features of the material plant, 
the principal and the special teacher, the new entrance 
requirements, the new and renovated old subjects, the 
curriculum differentiations, simplified organization, dis- 
cipline adjusted to early adolescence, and equipment, 
must go such features as directed school and home study, 
systems of organized educational and strictly vocational 
guidance, lengthened school-day and school-year, carefully 
supervised student activities, and card catalogues of indi- 
vidual differences recorded in such a way as to affect the 
daily administration of the school. Ask ourselves how 
many of these features of a school are possible in Euro- 
pean systems and we begin to appreciate the American- 
ism of the junior high school idea. We understand 
neither Americanism nor the junior high school thor- 
oughly at present, yet we can believe in them. They 
are both struggling for expression. 

What are the criticisms? It is urged that at the age 
of twelve there are no radical changes into adolescence 



THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 149 

as one notes at fourteen. But the very idea of a junior 
high school is to work gradually into secondary meth- 
ods and subjects. It is urged that we are creating by 
this three curriculum unit arrangement three water- 
tight compartments in our school system instead of 
two, and making it therefore possible to subdivide still 
further. This argument fails obviously as an argument. 
Opponents think the change necessarily means com- 
pletely differentiated curriculums from the first junior 
high school year, failing entirely to distinguish different 
bases for flexibility in a course of training, and failing to 
recognize all degrees of partially and progressively dif- 
ferentiated lines of work. Again it is to be feared, we 
are told, that if we segregate the six-year elementary 
school " elementary graduation" will mark the natural 
dropping of place for the majority — this in the face of 
many figures to the contrary from widely scattered 
junior high schools. Forgetting the fact that the new 
plan of entrance to some part of the junior high school 
will be in force the opponents argue, too, that the over- 
age will, when they reach the compulsory age (in what- 
ever low grade they are), tend to drop out. Instead 
they will be^happy and adjusted in the junior high school 
itself before any such condition prevails. It is argued 
that general reorganization of our schools must follow 
any such step as starting a junior school. It will, and 
this is the best argument for it. They are even speak- 
ing of cost — forgetting the striking feature it possesses 
of more fairly equalizing things by raising the per capita 
in the upper part of elementary organization. They 
claim that grammar-school teachers are now better 
teachers than high school teachers, and that grammar- 
school conditions are better school conditions, and that 
all this is an argument against cutting the 7th and 8th 
grades away from the elementary school and engrafting 



150 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

them upon the high school — overlooking the fact that 
this is not what is proposed. Other arguments are that 
the plan is better fitted for the city schools than for the 
small schools and that, therefore, credentials admitting 
pupils from the smaller to the larger schools would be 
made more difficult; and that children driven from the 
common school earlier will be " sorted" into differen- 
tiated courses, according to their probable future em- 
ployment. Such arguments are doubtless offered by 
their authors merely because they must offer some sort 
and find these the only available ones. It is very clear 
that they do not touch vitally the chief educational 
problems genuinely constructive high school admin- 
istrators are facing. 

The junior high school is more than anything else a 
term adopted to denote design in our educational organ- 
ization and administration. It means that something 
other than tradition and accident has come to influence 
our development. It means some sort of uniqueness 
both in the pedagogy of school subjects new and old, 
and in the spirit of our administration. It means the 
Americanization of a world-tested principle of curricu- 
lum-building. It means flexibility and, therefore, sci- 
ence in the manipulation of our total school plants. 
Meaning in a restricted sense reorganization of the three 
intermediate grades it in reality means reorganization of 
the entire public-school system. It has as a term pre- 
vailed because of the spirited championship of its ideals 
by effective educational leaders in the face of as deter- 
mined, even more violent, opposition. 

Why does it stand for us to-day as our chief educa- 
tional problem ? In the first place, because it, like fire, 
though indispensable in the right place and in the right 
hands, is still dangerous; because it is misunderstood, 



THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 151 

because its proponents exaggerate its immediate values, 
because like all real reforms it really cannot be fully 
understood by any one at the present stage of its evolu- 
tion — it is our prime educational problem because, of 
course, the junior high school is the adopted caption for 
an institution which, whatever we think of it, is spread- 
ing everywhere. The junior high school in its name 
and independent physical existence and form of organ- 
ization is but the outward manifestation of a sound 
new philosophy of education. It is the name we have 
come to associate with new ideas, promotion, new meth- 
ods of preventing elimination, new devices for moving 
selected groups through subject-matter at different 
rates, higher compulsory school age, new and thorough 
analyses (social, economic, psychological) of pupil popu- 
lations, enriched courses, varied and partially differ- 
entiated curriculum offerings, scientifically directed 
study practice, new schemes for all sorts of educational 
guidance (educational in narrow sense, and also moral, 
temperamental, and vocational), new psychological 
characterizations of types in approaching the paramount 
school problem of individual differences, new school- 
year, new school-day, new kind of class exercise, new 
kinds of laboratory and library equipment and utiliza- 
tion, and new kinds of intimate community service. It 
has somehow fired our educational imagination. 

It is a part of our educational philosophy already. 
Even its vigorous opponents have done the cause valu- 
able service and made real though so far negative con- 
tributions. From now on, however, it would seem that 
all educators should pull with the current, and construc- 
tively help clarify the real "junior high school idea." 



JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 1 

Our problem, as I see it, is so vital, its issues so urgent, 
its aspects so diverse, that it is difficult even to state the 
topic of our discussion without revealing a personal bias 
and also a recognizable educational philosophy. If one 
says "intermediate school' ' some see here a deplorable 
conservatism and a bald and uninteresting outlook. 
The name is, really, more vital than it may seem, and 
the greater and greater relative frequency with which 
one hears the term "junior high school" actually indi- 
cates the trend of the movement. In this discussion we 
may, if we can, disregard any ulterior designs in the use 
of the name "junior high school." We may go further 
and disclaim other now natural assumptions as to the 
essential features of the reorganization we are all dis- 
cussing. 

Those actively engaged in and committed to the 
"reorganization" plan face, of course, the problems of 
how many administrative units (of separate principals 
and teachers and students) we may best make; and the 
more perplexing one, of how many curriculums within 
the different cycles (or units) must be organized and 
administered for our different groups of pupils. We 
may, for example, finally divide the first six years and 
kindergarten into two programme and curriculum units, 
and the last six years of public education also into two, 
thus having four cycles in our twelve-year public school 

1 Read before the High School Conference, University of Illinois, 
Nov. 19, 191 5. 

152 



JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 153 

curriculum offerings. We may again, despite present 
strong indications, revert largely to the "two-division" 
plan of precious and of recent memory. Thirdly, we 
may, as seems most likely at the present time, increas- 
ingly accept the three-unit division or cycle arrange- 
ments, i. e. : elementary, junior high, senior high. Even 
if the three-division scheme prove most acceptable with 
reference to matters of purely administrative machinery, 
we have still the major question of where (in terms of 
school age) to differentiate curriculums in the three 
newly divided stages of public education, and the ques- 
tion of degrees of differentiation in the two upper cycles. 
Here again neither the name nor the types of curricu- 
lums, nor the desirable curriculum affiliations and com- 
binations are even near settlement. Again those possi- 
ble three or four type variations of the six-three-three 
plan itself, which will be conditioned by size of city and 
character of school system, are but vaguely conceived, 
are being experimented with under only partially satis- 
factory conditions for scientific testing for their special 
merits, and are as yet nowhere clearly and finally deter- 
mined. All this is merely to say that the term "reor- 
ganization" refers to all the newly proposed cycle divi- 
sions of the public school by years — elementary, upper- 
elementary, lower-secondary, upper-secondary. 

Now it happens that most critical attention, for rea- 
sons already thrashed over and commonly accepted, is 
now focussed upon the middle cycle. The boundaries 
of this middle ground are not settled. We shall refer 
in this discussion, therefore, for obvious reasons, only 
incidentally to the reorganization problems of the first 
six years or to those of the last three years (four or five 
if we include the junior college) and we shall deal chiefly 
with the reorganization affecting the seventh, eighth, 



154 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

and ninth years. We shall all grant that no part of the 
whole educational system, public or private, will remain 
unaffected. Nowhere at present, also, is the full mean- 
ing of the movement now upon us fully understood. 
Everywhere schoolmen feel sure there is much of pro- 
found significance beneath the surface. 

Once — in 1893, for example — our secondary education 
leaders may have, as they professed they did, faced a 
relatively clear and simple set of high school problems. 
The historic Committee of Ten were easily unanimous 
in their hearty and confident indorsement of their 
famous programme for American secondary education, 
which they so effectively launched. They were proud 
of their agreeable unanimity. They were mostly inter- 
ested in subject-matter, content of courses, providing 
something to teach, and at least one method of doing it. 
No other fundamental purposes of real life and of des- 
tiny of nations figured for them in any specific way. 

The National Education Association Committee on 
Articulation of School and College inherited this some- 
what narrow though definite problem, but brought to it a 
spirit of adjustment quite admirable, if a bit cocky and 
defiant. They sacrilegiously denied the sole principle of 
unity of the older committee of eminent educational au- 
thorities. This second report is now the most influential 
single piece of literature in existence in furnishing a model 
high school curriculum for those inclined to vary the 
traditional, single, "college preparatory" type. The 
chief interest, however, of this energetic second national 
committee seems to an outsider to have been in the 
questions of educational values of particular subjects 
and in ingenious manipulations by administrative de- 
vices of their (assumed necessary) single but new type 
of high school curriculum. They looked for a new flexi- 



JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 155 

bility and advocated a method of manipulating admin- 
istrative machinery. They instituted no fundamental 
re-examination of all subject-matter with fearless refer- 
ence chiefly to the more heterogeneous groups now in 
high school, and of those still more varied and urgently 
needy groups who are not, but who should be in a high 
school of some type. Essentially they sought to lighten 
the yoke of college entrance and to liberalize the college 
entrance principle, rather than to strike right out and 
construct different kinds of high school curriculums for 
the socially, economically, and psychologically distin- 
guishable groups of actual or possible high school stu- 
dents. The North Central Association and similar in- 
terstate standardizing agencies in other sections of the 
country have had for years committees on subject-mat- 
ter who worked always from the point of view above — 
the unit-making possibility of it all. 

In 1 91 2 the North Central Association appointed 
also a standing committee on administrative prob- 
lems of high school reorganization. In 19 14 the two 
committees found that they could not keep off each 
other's preserves. So they were consolidated into one 
committee — the Committee of Fifteen on Reorganiza- 
tion of Secondary Education and on the Definition of a 
Unit. They, too, are being driven, as was the National 
Commission, to invent a philosophy of secondary educa- 
tion. Now increasingly everywhere the broadening ad- 
ministrative and deepening pedagogical questions are 
seen to be interrelated. So the National Commission 
hopes something will come out of the co-operative work 
of its twelve subcommittees of liberal specialists in sub- 
ject-matter (with their achieved administrative com- 
mon sense), all undsr a central " Reviewing Committee/ 7 
whose function is to harmonize and integrate the results 



156 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

of the various committees into a unified programme of 
development. 1 

We here are similarly presenting in juxtaposition the 
administrative features and problems and the peda- 
gogics of the special subject-matters. If we can bring 
to bear upon the problem administrative common 
sense and harmoniously interrelated subject-matters 
and get them formulated into a purely educational pro- 
posal, we may reasonably hope to grasp what we are at 
liberty to call "the junior high school idea." We should 
give it a spirit as a whole, we should combine admin- 
istrative and pedagogical considerations into a platform 
of reform in school work, and we should so conceive this 
junior school idea that its underlying ideals will appear 
to affect the interests of all grades of public-school work. 
In short, neither skilful administrative manipulation nor 
special pedagogical reform in more or less unrelated 
school subjects can convey to one any meaning of "re- 
organization" worth discussing. Let us for a time for- 
get the corresponding but indirect effects of reorganiza- 
tion upon the six elementary years and upon the senior 
high school and junior college and let us consider the 
junior school. 

I shall attempt to present the movement itself, to 
specify distinguishable problems and place them in 
their proper groupings, sense the relative proportions of 
these different groups of new problems, suggest prob- 
able solutions where practice and educational princi- 
ples seem to furnish any assuring evidence, note the 
trends of developments in different types of school sys- 
tems and different communities— all the while pointing 

1 Since this article was written the commission has appointed a 
special Subcommittee of Administration of Secondary Education 
also. 



JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 157 

out in particular what we do not know about the junior 
high school. 

I shall understand by "administrative problems" both 
those which are of a profoundly social nature, relating 
directly to the demands of democracy; the more techni- 
cal ones of a financial sort; and the strictly professional 
ones, such as curriculum organization and the various 
new features of school management supposed to be 
essential accessories of the new organization — type of 
principal and teacher, new text-books, new relation to 
college (new units, etc.), vocational guidance, and super- 
vised study. "Administrative problems" should in- 
clude also certain phases of the selection and educational 
organization of content of courses. 

Administration, thus comprehensively and spiritually 
interpreted, is in a sense the most vital feature of any 
old or new organization. From one point of view it 
outranks even good but isolated unco-operative teach- 
ing of special subjects. It is the spirit of the system 
which can taint or can inspire all the co-operative work 
of the school. Now the spirit of our reorganization 
must be governed by this clear philosophy of educational 
administration. Our particular question is: "Can this 
essential spirit of administration get its best expression 
in new units of internal government, new curriculum 
units, new types of school activities, new kinds of group 
consciousness and group exercise, new school relation- 
ships — all typical of the associations which its ad- 
vocates connect with the junior school idea ?" In other 
words, can we interpret the junior high school as an out- 
ward manifestation of a sound, new philosophy of edu- 
cational administration ? That it is a manifestation of 
some sort of philosophy of school administration we are 
sure. Why do its advocates associate it with new ideas 



158 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

of promotion, new analyses (social, economic, and psy- 
chological) of its pupil populations, new schemes of all 
sorts for guidance (educational, moral, temperamental), 
new psychological characterizations of types, new school- 
year, new school-day, "class period "? It has somehow 
set on fire a sort of educational imagination which can- 
not be checked. The particular plan one proposes may 
be debatable; yet its agitation brings results. Its advo- 
cacy is a means to an end. The junior high school is 
no fool-proof device. Suppose it to be only a fruitful 
pretext; still schoolmen are using it in order purposely 
and in the spirit of progress to confront themselves 
with a condition demanding consummate knowledge 
and skill in both teacher and supervisor. 

Superintendent Study, of Neodesha, after three years 
of experiment and successful experience, thus in sub- 
stance puts his experience into advice regarding the four 
fundamental steps to take if one moves at all in this 
new direction — that of organizing a junior high school. 

i. The first requisite for success is self -preparation of 
the superintendent himself. He must hold a reasoned 
position backed up with contagious enthusiasm, he must 
be patient, tactful, and willing to wait for results, and 
he must know how to present his cause as well as know 
the formal technical arguments themselves. 

2. The school board must be educated thoroughly 
before the reorganization step is taken. Being a sole 
promoter is fatal and wrong in principle. This sort of 
an educational step imposes a responsibility which the 
board must share. 

3. Likewise the principals and the teachers must 
understand the aims and purposes of the new curricu- 
lums and methods of instruction, and help create the 
new atmosphere of success. Many superintendents 



JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 159 

have forgotten this democratic necessity, and their lieu- 
tenants have not rallied around them. As Superinten- 
dent Horn, of Houston, reports, it is very difficult to get 
the "junior high school idea" into their minds. 

4. There is another factor: the parents and the com- 
munity. The possible values of the new plan must be 
patiently and clearly and constantly taught them through 
press and platform and pulpit, and informally on all 
sorts of social occasions. This step is the occasion par 
excellence for educational idealization on the part of the 
entire community. 

Superintendent Study means that if you believe in 
the new organization scheme at all you must believe in 
it hard. He has, I think, the only legitimate point of 
view and has well defined the only excusable attitude 
for those who venture out upon these waters. He has 
estimated the essential steps. These, rather than merely 
mechanical equipment, or a sort of standardized instruc- 
tional minimum, or type of building, or kind of text- 
books, or length of class period, are the real prerequi- 
sites. Before we are through with reorganizing, of 
course, all these matters {externa, as the Germans call 
them) will be affected; but no schoolman should hesi- 
tate to adopt those characteristic features of the junior 
high school which will make his school system more 
effective, even if he cannot at first conform to some- 
body's arbitrary definition of such an organization. 

Among these specific steps there is no one order of pro- 
cedure. Some schoolmen Begin with the hardest prob- 
lem first, that of curriculum reorganization and partial 
differentiation; others find it better to begin with some 
extra-curriculum feature such as vocational-guidance 
systems, schemes for study and record of individual dif- 
ferences, supervised study, departmentalism, the mere 



160 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

addition of new subjects, the formation of slow-moving 
and fast-moving groups, or even social-centre activities. 
These are details. What is useful to keep in mind is 
that complete reorganization cannot be accomplished at 
once, and that one cannot merely wait till a professional 
standardizer tells him he can launch the full-fledged 
junior high school machinery. All the good things 
which characterize systems which have acquired these 
combined functions through some years of practice and 
adjustment must be bought with the price aggressive 
schoolmen are accustomed to pay for such high out- 
comes. 

As this discussion is concerned primarily with those 
matters of administrative character as distinguished 
from others purely educational and even pedagogical, it 
may be well at this point to go into more detail regard- 
ing definite questions. Let us enumerate those typi- 
cally non-instructional administrative problems. 

Shall there be an individuality about the junior high 
school building? Los Angeles, Cal., Kansas City, Kan- 
sas; Trenton, N. J.; Houston, Texas; Neodesha, Kan- 
sas; MacMinnville, Ore. (all uniquely situated), furnish 
us hints. Houston reports: "Our junior high school 
buildings have been admirably planned for the purposes 
outlined above (junior high school purposes). Espe- 
cially are they adapted to the policy of emphasizing in- 
dustrial education and physical education. They have 
a much greater proportion of their space given to shops, 
kitchens, laboratories, gymnasiums, and assembly-rooms 
than is ordinarily found in school-buildings. In our 
South End building in particular it would have been 
possible to erect a building to accommodate at least 50 
per cent more students with the $250,000 which the 
building cost, in addition to the grounds and equip- 



JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 161 

ment. This would have been done, however, by adding 
more class-rooms at the expense of shops, laboratories, 
etc." I wish he had added "special libraries," as he 
could have done. He has a real junior high school 
library. He has also a swimming-pool. Other build- 
ing features are being tested in the other places named. 

Where shall the directive and administrative authority 
be? For a long time this will be a debatable question, 
and already some heat and strong opinion are in evi- 
dence. We are here confronted with a fresh situation 
in which, free from traditional prejudice, we have a fine 
opportunity for establishing an adjustment of admin- 
istrative and supervisory relationships and co-operations 
which is impossible under the old system. For obvious 
reasons one hesitates to cite examples. 

What subjects are to be offered under these new condi- 
tions? I can only reflect briefly typical opinion and 
special practice. 

The report of the Committee on the Reorganization 
of the Public School System of Wisconsin says in sub- 
stance: English, with larger emphasis upon literature 
suitable for adolescents, elementary mathematics, in- 
cluding the simpler elements of observational geometry 
and algebra of the equation, general science (or elemen- 
tary science) — all three interlocked with history and 
geography and taught with reference to later advanced 
sequentially related work; constructive work in all the 
general manual training of the public school, in domestic 
science, drawing, and agriculture; systematic exercise in 
the form of music and physical education. The addi- 
tional variables of this extended programme must be 
selected with a view to pursuing it for two years, giving 
it a thorough try-out and the pupil one, also. Other 
systems make more extensive inroads into newer fields, 



162 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

differentiating the work in such fields as civics, com- 
mercial branches, mathematics, etc. Solvay, N. Y., is 
a good example to be cited later. So much for the mere 
addition of subjects and courses. 

What measure of curriculum differentiation shall there 
be? Some so-called junior high schools have little if 
any and rest their claim to their title upon extra-instruc- 
tional features. Leavitt and Brown, in their book 
"Prevocational Education in the Public Schools," advo- 
cate two clearly distinctive curriculums, and base their 
suggestion upon the practice in a few selected schools. 
In addition to this sort of differentiation, leading to dif- 
ferent sorts of content for different pupil groups, we 
have also the kind of differentiation determined by the 
presence of "accelerant groups" and "slow-moving" 
groups in the same subject. This is cited by Briggs 
(Annual Report of U. S. Commissioner of Education, 
1 914) as one of the most important reasons for a junior 
high school. Given these distinguishable groups we 
have three different methods of administration with ref- 
erence to them alone — obviously a new educational pos- 
sibility opened up by the movement. 

What shall be the modifications of subjects because of 
their different "curriculum settings"? One junior high 
school principal writes: "The work as we give it is 
divided into six separate curriculums. While often the 
same subjects may be required in the different cur- 
riculums, there may be considerable difference between 
the subject as given in one curriculum and the same 
subject as given in another curriculum." English, in 
other words, means less technical grammar than in the 
old elementary single curriculum; English in the domes- 
tic, practical arts and prevocational curriculums means 
no technical grammar at all. History in the academic 



JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 163 

and commercial curriculum is like the traditional courses; 
in the domestic, practical arts, and vocational, it places 
much more emphasis upon inventions and commercial 
history. Arithmetic in the academic early in the course 
treats commercial applications of percentage as algebra, 
and treats their mensuration as geometry; the commer- 
cial curriculum devotes all the time to commercial appli- 
cations, works more narrowly to attain a trade standard 
of accuracy and speed in computation (sacrificing some- 
thing of the purely mathematical exercise). So it is 
with the drawing work and the science work. He goes 
on to explain how the academic group takes German 
five times a week, while the commercial is taking type- 
writing two years and bookkeeping one, and the house- 
hold-science pupils are having two double periods each 
in cooking and in sewing, practical arts pupils four 
double periods in shop and one double period in shop 
drawing, and the vocational pupils, their longer school- 
day and school-year in practical work. All "academic" 
boys and girls get some of the shop work or the cooking 
and sewing. 

What entrance requirement to the junior high school ? 
All over age from the now better, more economically organ- 
ized six-year elementary school. 

What shall be the entrance requirements to the senior 
high school? Superintendent Spaulding says age and 
maturity, not scholastic attainment; not ability to do 
the work offered in the "single curriculum" senior high 
school, but ability to do something different from the 
babies of the first six grades and something which the 
modern upper high school must, if it does not now, offer. 
Superintendent Maxwell would have no "scholastic en- 
trance requirement" for the group who are destined for 
the vocational work of the junior high school, but he 



164 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

would add a more rigid scholastic test for the others — 
a compromise. Of the three practices I like Spaulding's. 

How record credits ? To be dogmatic: by the semester 
hour plan, as in college, because of the desirable varying 
of number of class periods for courses in order to assist 
in meeting the situation arising from accelerant classes, 
new features, etc. 

How shall the same subject {German or Latin) be differ- 
ent in form and in unit of credit value when given in 
junior and in senior high school? (See Annual Report 
of North Central Association, Committee on Definition 
of a Unit — 1914.) This solution is tentative, but prob- 
ably in the right direction. 

What unique systems of advice and guidance are espe- 
cially suitable for junior high schools ? (See Somerville, 
Mass., Superintendent C. S. Clark's Annual Report, 
1914.) 

What is the most practical system of card-index of indi- 
vidual traits , etc., and what can we do with all this per- 
sonal information of pupils, once we get it? Experi- 
ments are numerous, but as yet no single system stands 
out from the others. 

What are the qualifications of the " home teacher " u ad- 
viser teacher" "mother-teacher" in regard to preventing 
impossible assignments (a danger of all junior high 
schools at first), in dealing with absences, discipline, 
etc.? A new functionary is here being developed. 
(See McMinnville, Ore.; Houston, Texas; Decatur and 
Urbana, 111., et al) 

What is a junior high school laboratory work ? Indi- 
vidual experimentation, or wholly demonstrational ? 
And in what subjects practicable ? (See N. E. A. for- 
mulation of " Project, " Report of Committee on General 



JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 165 

Science, February, 191 5.) This is still a controversial 
issue in which neither side has as yet touched bottom. 

What is a junior high school library ? (See Springfield, 
111.; Houston, Texas; Decatur, 111., for reports showing 
widely differing facilities.) 

What is the proper class period, number of periods per 
day, per week, proper division for study and for recita- 
tion, variation with subjects ? (Variation here is indica- 
tive of most thorough experimentation with many dif- 
ferent combinations of features.) 

Can we standardize the home study for this cycle as the 
French do ? and can we administer our own standards ? 
(No data of value as proof, but much of "suggestive" 
value.) 

What is practicable and what desirable regarding depart- 
mentalism? (See Reports from Rochester and Solvay, 
N. Y., and H. W. Josselyn's "Survey of Accredited 
Schools of Kansas" for variations of so-called " depart- 
mentalism " itself.) 

What shall be the number of studies taken at one time by 
the pupil in junior high school, and how many times per 
week? (See North Central Association Report, 1914, 
which appears here to be in direct opposition to the 
central idea of exploitation and exploration of interests 
and aptitudes of pupils partly by means of a greater 
variety and larger number of courses. See also the 
"concentration" method of administration of curricu- 
lums in Manual Training High School, Indianapolis.) 

How standardize the instruction hours per teacher per 
week ? (Extreme variation in practice.) 

Shall junior high school teachers be college graduates? 
(This is evidently a common ideal.) 

What is a reasonable salary scale as compared with 



166 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

senior high school teachers ? (Some advocate same scale, 
some even a higher.) 

May we expect an interchange of teaching service and of 
supervision, as well as of apparatus and of library facili- 
ties ? (Different systems will soon be able to contribute 
pertinent experience here.) 

What is the minimum number of pupils essential to the 
ideal junior high school organization? Merely enough 
for full classes, for sections in laboratories and for special 
libraries; enough to justify special auditorium exercises 
for credit; enough for accelerant groups; enough to 
reduce the per capita costs to what figure? (See Hol- 
land's Report of Louisville Public Schools, 19 13, 14, 
and H. W. Josselyn in Johnston's "The Modern High 
School," chap. V.) 

As to arguments, I shall not rehash them now. They 
are familiar to all who read modern educational litera- 
ture, or even to those who merely attend educational 
meetings. Each side urges the cause of democracy 
itself as the first argument, and from this goes forth into 
"castes in society" and "tampering with curriculums," 
down to mere matters of administrative device. 

The extent of the movement is now impressive. 
There are at least six states which have "resolved" and 
taken other steps. Many teacher associations, includ- 
ing the National Education Association and some large 
universities, including University of Michigan and Uni- 
versity of Chicago, have adjusted temporarily their en- 
trance requirements, and the North Central Association 
has twice announced its intention to propose some more 
fundamental method of articulation. The National 
Commission of Secondary Education and the Depart- 
ment of Superintendence are committed. At the pres- 



JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 167 

ent time a large number of schools in the North Central 
territory alone report themselves as unorthodox, most 
of them being clearly "intentional" junior high schools. 
A larger number report their intention to reorganize in 
the near future. Douglass in 19 13 was in communica- 
tion with 135 such schools. Briggs, in the Annual Com- 
missioner's Report, 1914, cites 167 cities as having one 
or more junior schools, and elsewhere speaks of being in 
communication with 193, and says that 222 others had 
declared their plans formed for such a step. The North 
Central territory contains the same impressive propor- 
tion of these intending the reform. Doubtless many of 
these are not full-fledged junior high schools. The more 
interesting thing is that they are such in what to them 
is some essential feature, and in their intention of grad- 
ually incorporating others. I believe their spirit is a 
good one — launch right out when the preparations above 
specified are made, and do the thing which seems best 
to start upon. Local conditions will determine which 
ones of all those enumerated steps should come first. 

As to proofs we have at present only case records 
of successes of individual systems — no appraisal of large 
numbers of systems with reference to items of improve- 
ment in common measured under comparable condi- 
tions. Furthermore, we have no reported failures or 
reversions to the older type. 

Thus far we have mentioned the strictly administra- 
tive problems largely external to the curriculum differ- 
entiations themselves. The policy of curriculum differ- 
entiation and specialized trainings in the senior high 
school scarcely longer admits of argument. It is the 
great issue in the junior high school. There is a sense 
in which curriculum differentiation at this junior school 



168 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

stage is questionable. Certainly few would advocate 
pigeonholing all the pupils of these grades by absolute 
segregation with specialized methods and courses and 
distinctive subjects. There is another sort of curricu- 
lum differentiation, however, which is basic to the very 
junior high school idea itself. It may be progressively 
illustrated by Richmond, Ind. ; Trenton, N. J. ; and Sol- 
vay, N. Y.; and by certain extreme vocational curricu- 
lums in Massachusetts and New York. 

We may say that the "prevocational issue" appears 
to be the most prominent reason or pretext for junior 
high school curriculum differentiation. Briggs calls at- 
tention to the fact that there were only 57 of the 167 
junior high schools which he examined which differen- 
tiate their curriculums on some other than a so-called 
vocational basis. This term, " prevocational,' ' appears 
to be an ill-chosen one to cover, as it does, all the cur- 
riculum variations from the traditional academic cur- 
riculum. We may distinguish, as regards their attitude 
toward prevocational work, the following as typical of 
curriculum-makers for junior high schools: 

1. The traditional academicist who will have none of it. 

2. The average fair schoolman who will make — often 
from necessity — the gingerly solution of adding two 
subjects — manual training and domestic science. 

3. The "Cole type" (see Cole, " Industrial Education 
in the Elementary School"), who will rejuvenate the 
academic subjects a bit and add a new subject which is 
called "Industry," which will function in giving "indus- 
trial insight" and "appreciation of labor." 

4. The Indiana spiral plan of a sort of academic or- 
ganization in much detail of the state-required voca- 
tional subjects in the upper grades to be followed by 
elaboration of same material in high school. 



JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 169 

5. The state aided vocational work (specialized and 
intensive) for selected junior high school boys and girls 
in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts. 

6. There is what we may call the most recent — Leav- 
itt and Brown's — "new general prevocational educa- 
tion" for the "prevocational type" of boy and girl. It 
does not contemplate any new names for school sub- 
jects, but does propose entirely new content for this 
special, psychologically different group. 

7. There is the Solvay "five-curriculum" scheme, 
with the third "readjustment" year for those who 
change their curriculum after the two years' try-out. 

8. The "Ettinger cross-section curriculum scheme" of 
New York City is both interesting as an offered substi- 
tute for the Gary system and for being now tried out in 
some New York schools. 

9. Then lastly we have the Gary plan, and now nu- 
merous variations of it — a scheme of such fundamen- 
tally and profoundly reorganized materials and methods 
that even curriculum differentiation is not necessary — 
since there is left no academic curriculum from which to 
differentiate. 

The junior high school has before it all these models 
of differentiation. 

For whom definitely are all these differentiations of 
curriculum devised? Leavitt is an illustration of an 
advocate of curriculum differentiation on the ground of 
psychologically different types of junior high school 
pupils — the "scholastic type" and the "prevocational 
type." His differentiated curriculum is not for the 
"thousands and thousands who succeed in school work 
now," but for the overage or retarded. Even some of 
these are not "serious," unless they have acquired a 
"chronic dislike for school." One suspects that Leavitt 



170 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

is after all, however, thinking of a large number of 
pupils, not only of those overage in the overburdened 
first six grades, but also of numbers of those in their 
grade who have not been gripped by academic interests. 
One suspects, too, and hopes that Mr. Leavitt is vision- 
ing some final and fundamental reorganization of all 
public-school work of these grades. Solvay makes its 
" five-division" differentiation with "social needs as the 
curriculum clew." The Ayres method of analysis of 
pupils' "career probabilities" as used for the "read- 
justment year" is employed to correct errors in curricu- 
lum placement. The "Ettinger plan" is preceded by 
parent-teacher conference and correspondence. These 
are but a few of the plans for curriculum differentiations 
now being achieved in the junior high school period. All 
bear close relation to the next problem, that of the con- 
tent of the courses constituting the curriculums. 

The "junior high school idea" implies the earnest 
and thoroughgoing examination of all subject-matter 
with a view to its definite aims and values. The further 
work of the National Society for the Study of Educa- 
tion in following its work (Fourteenth Year-Book) in 
some of the traditional elementary subjects by an ex- 
amination into the new subjects and courses as they 
vary with their "curriculum settings" in junior high 
schools will be awaited with interest. 

The increasing number of junior high school manuals 
now being published contain quite elaborately and care- 
fully worked-out "units of instruction" within the 
newly established junior high school courses. This is, 
of course, indicative of the most profound and far- 
reaching phase of the whole movement. Indeed, the 
movement itself might be said to exist and to gather its 
momentum in order thus to eventuate and culminate in 



JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 171 

a thoroughly reorganized educational aim, content, and 
method. This paper has sought chiefly to suggest the 
administrative instrumentality which will likely further 
this wide- spread spirit of public-school reform. 1 

1 Most of the references to particular junior high schools in the 
text above were chosen for local reasons or because of recent corre- 
spondence freshly in mind. No attempt was made to include even 
the most prominent institutions of this type, such as Los Angeles, 
Grand Rapids, Berkeley, Columbus, Boston, Madison, Trenton, 
Rochester, Evansville, Salt Lake City, Dayton, etc. 



CURRICULUM ORGANIZATION 

There are still a few high schools that cling to the 
traditional college preparatory curriculum, to which all 
pupils are subjected. Then there are those that attempt, 
through the elective system, to meet the needs of each 
individual by placing him in just those courses which he 
needs. Under this plan there are presumably as many 
curriculums as there are pupils. Theoretically, this sys- 
tem is sound; in practice it has not worked. A third 
method is found in those schools that have adopted the 
" group' ' system. Under this system courses are ar- 
ranged into groups according to logical sequences and 
relationships. Those courses that are closely related to 
the study of Latin, for example, are required in the 
Latin group. These "groups" are almost always domi- 
nated by tradition and by college entrance requirements, 
but theoretically the groupings are logical from the 
standpoint of subject-matter. It often happens, of 
course, that some of these groups are, in effect, curricu- 
lums. Thus the mechanic arts, the household arts, or 
the commercial groups are likely to be so designed as 
to meet fairly well the needs of definite groups of pupils 
and are, therefore, by chance, frequently true curricu- 
lums. There are likely to be many incongruities in such 
curriculums, because the chief considerations in their 
construction are considerations of subject-matter and 
not the needs of the students they are supposed to serve. 

In some schools, as in the high schools of Los Angeles, 
CaL, curriculums have been designed in view of the 
needs of well-defined pupil groups. The manual of the 
Los Angeles high schools shows many such curriculums. 

172 



CURRICULUM ORGANIZATION 173 

The Los Angeles boy who desires to enter the engineer- 
ing department of the state university will find the 
course which he needs laid out for him in one of the 
high schools. The boy or girl who desires to become 
a stenographer will find a stenographic curriculum, in 
which are required those subjects and courses which 
will fit one for that vocation. In Los Angeles the chief 
consideration is the boy or the girl and not subject-mat- 
ter, nor tradition, nor narrow formulas of mental disci- 
pline. Very few schools, however, have passed the 
" group " system in their curriculum planning. 

In his " History of Education in Iowa" (19 15) Mr. 
Clarence Ray Aurner gives an unusually complete list 
of representative programmes of studies in force in Iowa 
high schools at that time. Mr. Aurner points out that 
these programmes of studies are being constantly en- 
riched and are passing through processes of constant 
reorganization. A critical study of these programmes 
has failed to reveal a single Iowa high school that had 
progressed beyond the "group" system of administering 
programmes of studies. In 191 5 Doctor C. E. Holley 
made a study of the curriculum offerings of fifty-four 
high schools, located in cities of 4,000 or more inhabi- 
tants, selected at random throughout the United States. 
He secured his data from high school bulletins published 
between 191 2 and 1914. Doctor Holley says, in sum- 
marizing his study: "Curriculum differentiation has been 
attempted by many who have hazy ideas as to what 
they are doing. Few curriculums were found which 
were planned for a clearly differentiated group of pupils. 
Most of them were mere ' paper ' or administrative cur- 
riculums. It seems that few schoolmen are doing real 
curriculum thinking." Within the past three years the 
writer has critically analyzed the programmes of studies 



174 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

in over fifty of the largest high schools in the country 
and has found the same conditions. 

There are other respects in which there is the widest 
diversity in the administration of courses in high schools. 
The variation as regards constants, studies required of 
all pupils, is well known. A census of high schools 
would probably show that in no two schools are the 
requirements alike. All require English, but there the 
similarity ceases. Some require three and some require 
four years of English. Some require mathematics and 
some do not; some require science and some do not; 
some require one course in history, others other courses, 
and some none at all; and so on to the end. Apparently 
there is complete disagreement as to what subjects, with 
the exception of English, are indispensable to education 
for democracy. 

The problem of sequence and diversity has scarcely 
been considered by schoolmen. Under the group sys- 
tem there is sequence with a vengeance, altogether too 
much of it, for the sequences are likely to be in the most 
closely related subjects. Under the elective system, on 
the other hand, it is difficult to secure the necessary- 
sequence. Again, in an examination of groups in the 
programmes of studies of various schools, few conscious 
attempts have been found to secure diversity. But 
under the elective system there is likely to be a rush for 
snap courses and first-year courses, with the result that 
there is too much diversity and no sequence. 

In the curriculum history of the Decatur, 111., High 
School is epitomized the experimentation of three-quar- 
ters of a century in American high schools. The Deca- 
tur High School was established in the sixties. In 1868 
a curriculum was published. This curriculum, with 
others, is preserved in the reports which have been made 



CURRICULUM ORGANIZATION 175 

from time to time by the superintendents of schools in 
Decatur. At that time the Decatur High School offered 
only one curriculum. All pupils had to pursue this cur- 
riculum, which was in effect a college preparatory and, 
therefore, a true curriculum in the sense that it served 
one clearly defined pupil group — that group expecting 
to enter college. The only option was that of substitut- 
ing some other study for Latin. Pupils not intending to 
enter college were not compelled to take Latin, although 
a study of the curriculum leaves one in doubt as to 
what subject they could have taken instead of Latin. 
This curriculum remained in force for a number of 
years, probably until 1892, when a new programme of 
studies was printed. 

The old single curriculum system had failed in De- 
catur and was now elaborated into four curriculums or, 
more properly, "groups'' — the English, the Classical, the 
Latin, and the Scientific groups. An analysis of these 
four groups will show that they were very much alike. 
In fact, the only difference between the four was that in 
some more Latin was required than in others. In the 
classical and in the Latin groups four years were re- 
quired, in the science group three years were required, 
while in the English group no Latin was required. The 
classical group was so called because Greek was required. 
Once the pupil had selected his "group" there was prac- 
tically no opportunity for election of subjects, since all 
subjects were prescribed throughout the four years in 
each group. This attempt to adapt the work to the 
needs of the pupils did not succeed, so in 1899 a new 
system was introduced. 

In the period between 1892 and 1899 the Committee 
of Ten of the National Education Association had made 
its historic report. The discussion of how to adapt the 



176 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

programme of studies to the students had begun in 
earnest. The movement in favor of the elective sys- 
tem was in its heydey. Decatur High School was 
swung to the extreme. All "groups" were abolished 
and the programme of studies was administered on an 
almost completely free election system. 

Four years of English and two years of mathematics 
were required of all pupils. All other studies were elec- 
tive and the pupil would theoretically be placed, upon 
the advice of the principal, in those courses best adapted 
to his peculiar needs. This system was in vogue until 
191 1, but it failed to justify the claims that were made 
for it. An exhaustive study of the four-year individual 
curriculums of those pupils who had graduated from the 
high school in this period showed an almost utter lack 
of organization of courses so far as the individual was 
concerned. It was found that outside of English and 
mathematics few subjects were pursued longer than a 
year. There was an almost universal tendency on the 
part of pupils to take first and second year courses to 
the neglect of advanced courses. The one exception to 
this was the languages where tradition and a rule that 
two years of a foreign language must be taken in order 
to obtain credit in it toward graduation, unless the pupil 
had previously done two years in another foreign lan- 
guage, operated to secure more sequence. 

In 191 1 a new high school building was completed, 
and for the first time numerous and varied manual arts 
and commercial courses were to be offered. In a series 
of faculty meetings it was decided that a better curricu- 
lum organization must be obtained. The result was a 
return to the "group" system. Ten groups were estab- 
lished — the Latin, the German, the science, the English, 
the history-civics, the art, the commercial, the mechanic 



CURRICULUM ORGANIZATION 177 

arts, the household arts, and the normal preparatory. 
Four years of the major subject was required in each of 
these groups in addition to four years in English. Such 
other courses were required as had logical relation from 
the standpoint of subject-matter to the major subject 
of the group. 

This scheme was in vogue four years. It was an im- 
provement over the free elective system, because for 
the first time the pupil had some guidance in the matter 
of courses pursued, coupled with the advantages of a 
rich and varied programme of studies. But the plan 
was unsatisfactory. In the first place, it was found that 
there was too much sequence and not enough diversity. 
The four-year requirements in two studies worked very 
great hardships. A single failure might cause the pupil 
endless trouble in arranging a schedule of classes that 
would permit his completing his group in four years. 
Exception after exception had to be made, with the 
result that all regulations were practically thrown to the 
winds. There was a tendency on the part of the pupil 
to overspecialize. In the second place, the faculty 
came to believe that some of these groups were un- 
natural. There was, for example, no excuse for a 
Latin "group," or curriculum, in a high school in which 
there were perhaps not six pupils who would ever spe- 
cialize in Latin, and if there were those in the high school 
who would make the teaching or study of Latin a life 
vocation, they must first complete entrance require- 
ments in order to enter the university or college where 
they could prepare for their life-work. Such pupils 
properly belonged not in a Latin curriculum but in a 
college preparatory curriculum. It was also agreed by 
the faculty that many subjects required in the various 
groups were out of place because they had been placed 



178 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

in the group requirements through considerations of 
subject-matter rather than with regard to the needs of 
the pupils to be served by the study "groups." 

In 191 5 the whole matter was threshed out in a series 
of faculty meetings, and a new organization of the pro- 
gramme of studies was effected. It was decided that 
there were three large groups in the high school whose 
needs must be met by the programme of studies: the 
college preparatory group, the vocational group, and 
that group which would not enter college and did not, 
for good reasons, care to prepare for definite vocations, 
but desired a general liberal arts training in the high 
school. Curriculums were designed, therefore, to meet, 
as nearly as possible, the needs of each of those three 
groups and, in so far as possible, with the equipment at 
hand, to meet the needs of subdivisions of the large 
groups. So there were established college preparatory 
and normal preparatory curriculums that would admit 
to the various colleges of the state university and to the 
normal school of the district. Likewise a number of 
vocational curriculums were worked out, such as the 
household arts, including the sewing and the cooking 
curriculums; the mechanic arts, including the wood- 
working and the iron- working curriculums ; the commer- 
cial, including stenographic and bookkeeping curricu- 
lums; the music curriculums; the fine arts curriculum; 
the agriculture curriculum; and the teacher- training cur- 
riculums. The general curriculum, poorly named, per- 
haps, was planned for pupils who do not care to enroll 
in any of the vocational curriculums and do not care to 
take the mathematics or languages required in the col- 
lege preparatory curriculums. Experience had shown 
that this was a very real and definite pupil group. In 
all fifteen curriculums choices were offered. 



CURRICULUM ORGANIZATION 179 

In order to secure sequence and diversity it was de- 
cided to require of all pupils, in four distinct subjects or 
departments, two majors of three units each, and two 
minors of two units each. This system, copied, in fact, 
from the colleges, insures that the four years' work done 
by the pupil will have organization, and that he will 
pursue certain studies long enough to obtain some mas- 
tery of them. It also insures that he will have that 
diversity of training which is fundamental in a liberal 
education. The general curriculum could not be con- 
sidered a snap curriculum and an easy mark, because 
the pupil electing it is required to have his two majors 
and two minors, which call for good, hard, serious work. 

Finally, it was decided that three years of English, 
one year of mediaeval and modern history, a half year of 
civics or a whole year of American history, one year of a 
laboratory science and one semester each of physical 
education and chorus, should be required of all pupils. 
It is unnecessary to present the arguments for requiring 
English. At present there should be little disagreement 
upon that point among schoolmen, although there 
would probably be disagreement as to the amount that 
should be required. In brief, the reason for requiring 
mediaeval and modern history and civics, or American 
history, is that the prime business of the school is to 
prepare boys and girls for the intelligent performance of 
the duties of citizenship in a republic. In order to per- 
form these duties the pupil must be intelligent as regards 
the present political and social order and as regards the 
relations of the major nations of the world. In order to 
accomplish this end American history and civics and 
modern history are indispensable. These constitute the 
irreducible minimum. Since the greatest contribution 
of modern times to civilization and to the thought of the 



180 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

world has been that of science and of scientific method, 
no pupil should go out from the high school without an 
introduction to at least one great field of science and to 
scientific method. The physical well-being of people 
rests at the foundation of all education, culture, and 
civilization, and, therefore, physical education should be 
one of the school requirements of all pupils. The limi- 
tations of the plant alone determined the amount of this 
work required at Decatur. Finally, music was rec- 
ognized as a great socializing force in community life. 
Every student should have some appreciation of music 
in order that he may participate to the fullest extent in 
this great unifying experience. Here again the lack of 
space in the building at Decatur determined to a degree 
the requirement. 

In some such manner must the curriculum problem 
be solved. In every high school of any size certain 
groups of pupils will be found for which carefully planned 
curriculums must be provided. One such group, ever 
present, consists of those who will enter colleges or 
normal schools. Instead of Latin " groups" and science 
"groups" which meet nobody's needs, curriculums 
should be outlined for this group on the basis of the 
requirements of the state university, the head of the 
state school system, and of the normal school of the 
district. Another well-defined group is the commercial 
group, another the mechanic arts, another the house- 
hold arts, another that group needing a general, liberal 
arts curriculum. The scientific method of approaching 
the curriculum problem in a high school is through a 
survey of the abilities and vocational needs and inten- 
tions of the pupils. Such a survey, while not absolutely 
necessary, will throw great light on the problems, espe- 
cially in the larger schools. 



CURRICULUM ORGANIZATION 181 

Once a decision has been made as to what curriculums 
are needed, the problem is faced of what courses ought 
to be required in each curriculum. The test will be no 
longer that of the logical relationship of subject-matter 
but that of the needs of the pupil group to be served. 
Those courses will be required in the commercial cur- 
riculums that will best fit one to become a good stenog- 
rapher or bookkeeper or salesman. If a course in Latin 
is required in the stenographic curriculum it will be 
because stenographers will improve their vocabularies 
through a study of Latin and not because of any logical 
relation of Latin to any other subject required in that 
curriculum. 

But it will not be easy to construct these curriculums. 
Scientific investigations need to be made to determine 
just what training is required to fit for each vocation 
and to determine what vocations need to be considered 
in curriculum-planning. It will take years of inquiry, 
investigation, and experimentation to develop the best 
possible curriculums. 

In like manner the problem of constants must be 
attacked. The present diversity of practice in this re- 
spect is ridiculous. It characterizes us as a profession 
of loose thinkers. Can we not agree, say, on whether 
or not some of the social sciences ought to be required, 
and, if so, what constitutes the sine qua non. 

All that has been said concerning the problems of cur- 
riculum-making in the senior high school will hold good 
in the junior high school. The same principles of cur- 
riculum differentiation, of constants and of sequence 
and diversity, will hold in the junior cycle that will ob- 
tain in the senior cycle of our secondary schools. The 
remarkable growth of the junior high school system dur- 
ing the past five years leaves little doubt of the per- 



"182 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

manency of such an institution in our system of public 
schools. This growth of the junior high school idea 
means that, in this country, students of education are 
rapidly accepting differentiation of curriculums begin- 
ning with the seventh year. The differentiation in the 
junior high school will not be carried to the extent that 
it will be carried in the senior high school. There are, 
however, certain large groups for which specific curricu- 
lums will be designed. One such group consists of those 
who will ultimately enter college. Another group is 
composed of those pupils who desire a general liberal 
arts training in the senior high school but will not enter 
college. A third is composed of those pupils who will 
enter the vocational curriculums of the senior high 
school. This group will be differentiated in curriculum- 
planning into three or four subdivisions. There are 
those girls who are clearly destined for the household 
arts curriculum of the senior high school. There are 
boys who will enter the industrial pursuits. There are 
pupils who will enter commercial life as clerks, book- 
keepers, salesmen, stenographers, and some will even- 
tually become managers. Clearly there must be a 
household arts curriculum, a manual arts curriculum, 
with variations, for boys, and a commercial curriculum. 
In many Communities an agricultural curriculum will 
need to be added to these, or substituted for one of 
them. 

Still another group in the junior high school is com- 
posed of those boys and girls who, for economic reasons, 
never will enter the high school, and for whom specific 
vocational training of a trade nature must be provided. 
This will mean a number of curriculums leading to 
apprenticeship and, in many instances, fulfilling the 
function, in part at least, of apprenticeships. It is in 



CURRICULUM ORGANIZATION 183 

i 

this field that the junior high school organization will 
largely justify itself. In order to do this it must extend 
by a year the school life of that group that has not been 
entering the four-year high school. And it must pro- 
vide effective continuation work for those whom it can- 
not hold through the 9th grade. The George Wash- 
ington High School of Rochester, N. Y., offers a variety 
of industrial arts curriculums that constitute a living 
prophecy of the possibilities of the junior high school in 
industrial education. 

What curriculums, then, will there be in the junior 
high school? In general, there will be the college pre- 
paratory, general, commercial, industrial arts and house- 
hold arts for those pupils destined to enter the senior 
high school. In addition, there will be a group of cur- 
riculums of a highly specialized trade character for those 
who will never enter the senior high school, but who will 
at once become wage-earners. 

The principles of diversity and sequence, and of con- 
stants, applicable to curriculum-making in the junior 
high school will be the same as in the senior high school. 
If we accept the principle of differentiation in the junior 
high school grades the problem of constants, or of the 
common elements as they are called by Professor Bag- 
ley, is a matter of supreme importance. For obvious 
reasons, more work ••in more different subjects will be 
prescribed for all pupils in the junior high school than 
in the senior high school. To the prescription of Eng- 
lish, social science, science, music, and physical educa- 
tion in the senior high school must be added arithmetic, 
geography, and the manual arts in the junior high 
school. Great educational battles will be fought over 
the amount of time to be given to these constants and 
to the character of the subject-matter and the method 



184 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

in these courses. The disagreement as to the content, 
organization, method, and length of the general science 
course is characteristic of the chaotic condition as re- 
gards these constants in the junior high school at the 
present time. But there is almost as much disagree- 
ment on mathematics and the social sciences. Every 
development in these grades points clearly, however, to 
the general adoption of differentiation above the 6th 
grade. The constants will not be permitted, therefore, 
to take so much time as to prevent the offering of defi- 
nite curriculums in these grades. 

The very fact that the number of constants will be 
greater in the junior high school than in the senior high 
school will make less difficult the problem of sequence 
and diversity. Once the battle has been fought and the 
constants agreed upon, the matter of sequence and 
diversity will have been practically settled. There will 
be a sufficient number of constants running through two 
or three years of the junior high school to assure both 
the desired sequence and diversity. 

A reorganization of curriculums in both the junior 
and senior high schools, with a distinct differentiation 
of curriculums in the lower school, will raise the question 
of the entrance requirements of the senior high school. 
Under the traditional organization of schools all pupil9 
are placed upon the 9ame basis in this respect, all are 
put through the same paces in the grades and have, 
presumably, had the same preparation for high school. 
Differentiation of curriculums may in a measure undo 
this arrangement. There is likely to be some differ- 
entiation of entrance requirements as well as of cur- 
riculums. Completion of certain curriculums in the 
junior high school may admit to certain curriculums in 
the senior high school but not to others, with the pro- 



CURRICULUM ORGANIZATION 185 

vision, always, that a way must be left open, without 
imposing too great penalties, for industrious and capa- 
ble boys and girls to enter any senior high school cur- 
riculum and to realize any ambition that the public 
schools will permit. The senior high school must, of 
course, always be held open for those overage pupils 
who ought to be admitted, regardless of scholastic prep- 
aration, to those courses that will be of most profit to 
them. 

There may be differentiation of schools as well as of 
curriculums. In some of the larger cities there are 
manual arts high schools, commercial high schools, and 
liberal arts high schools, but the sentiment in favor of 
the cosmopolitan high school seems to be growing. The 
powerful argument in favor of the cosmopolitan high 
school is the social argument. It is a dangerous thing 
to accentuate the social stratification of society by 
separating in our secondary schools the boys and girls 
who are destined for the professions and for positions of 
leadership in our social and industrial life from the boys 
and girls who will be artisans and will fill subordinate 
positions. The same theory holds in large measure for 
the junior high school. 

It is not possible within the limits of this chapter to 
go into details regarding the organization of subject- 
matter within the courses in the high school. In dis- 
cussing curriculum policies it is assumed that the sub- 
ject-matter of the particular course will be selected with 
a view to the special needs of the pupil group to be 
served by that curriculum of which the course is a part. 
In the larger school it will be possible to differentiate 
courses. It will be possible, for example, to have one 
set of English courses for pupils who will go to college, 
another set for those who will enter vocations, and an- 



186 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

other set for those who will neither go to college nor 
enter the vocations, but who desire more general train- 
ing. But such differentiation cannot be justified in the 
case of constants. It is very important that the leaders 
of democracy should rub elbows with the rank and file 
of democracy in some of the courses in the high school. 
These courses must, by all means, be the constants. 
Any great differentiation of subject-matter in the con- 
stants will, therefore, be a dangerous thing, but beyond 
the constants there will be little danger of too much 
differentiation. Eventually the only limit upon it will 
be the problem of administration. 



SOCIALIZED RECITATION 

The character of the work done by a 9ystem of schools 
will be determined primarily by the methods employed 
in its recitation groups. The organization and type of 
curriculums, the selection of subject-matter, the social 
organization of the schools, the spirit of the administra- 
tion, are all important and essential, but these factors 
cannot make socialized schools unless the methods of 
instruction employed in the classrooms harmonize with 
the methods of democracy. If a democracy demands 
citizens capable of independent thought and initiative, 
citizens who can co-operate, who conceive the highest 
purpose in life to be service to society, then the methods 
of the classroom must develop such a citizenship. 

Where the aim of the schools is to train boys and 
girls to be submissive subjects of an autocratic state, 
certain methods must be followed in the schoolroom; 
where the aim is to create upstanding citizens of a 
democracy, wholly different methods must be employed. 
In the first school the emphasis must be placed upon 
conformity, in the second upon independent thinking. 

Contemporary thought, investigation, and experimen- 
tation in schools of education and in public schools have 
done much toward the development of scientific meth- 
ods. Experimental and educational psychology and 
child study have made invaluable contributions to this 
end. Standard tests and measurements and statistics 
have revealed many weak places and have already set 
up some definite standards of attainment. In the bet- 
ter schools there has been a resulting improvement in 
the efficiency of classroom instruction. This scientific 

187 



188 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

attack on the problems of method is only in its infancy, 
but is in every way essential to the development of good 
schools, and must be continued and extended. 

There has been a tendency, however, to overlook the 
most important fact of the school and of the recitation 
group, the fact that the school and every group in it 
present social situations as genuine as those of adult life. 
Dewey has insisted again and again that the school is 
life. In a state which is controlled by the people it is 
imperative that this corporate life of the school and its 
groups be so used as to evolve in its individual members 
those habits, prejudices, and interests essential to good 
citizenship. Of course in an autocracy the aim must be 
to substitute for this natural life a forced and unnatural 
one, to suppress instead of stimulate certain phases of 
intellectual curiosity and to create habits, prejudices, 
and interests entirely different from those demanded of 
a free people. But in either case the methods of the 
classroom are fundamental. 

The socialized recitation must be based on a socialized 
curriculum and subject-matter. It would be impossible 
to maintain a natural and significant social situation in 
a class in an American high school by drilling on the 
grammar and the forms of Sanskrit. Sanskrit can be a 
practical and interesting subject of study for only a few 
people. High school children might be compelled to 
drill over Sanskrit, even to master it, but they would 
have to be driven to it, and only in rare instances would 
a pupil acquire any real interest in a subject related so 
remotely to modern life. Sanskrit is not taught in our 
secondary schools, but much of the subject-matter that 
has crept in or has been retained through the force of 
tradition has about as little interest for boys and girls 
as has this dead language. 



SOCIALIZED RECITATION 189 

Much dead wood has been retained in the curricu- 
lums through the force of habit and of tradition, or, in 
the case of the high school, has crept in through the 
influence of the university and of the college. For ex- 
ample, much of the subject-matter of the traditional 
courses in mathematics has about as much relation to 
the needs of boys and girls, or of adults, as has the San- 
skrit language. In history and civics much of the work 
has consisted of drills on relatively unimportant dates 
and facts of military and dynastic history and the 
mechanical details of constitutions and forms of gov- 
ernment. In English we have compelled the mem- 
orization of the principles and forms of grammar, but 
we have failed to obtain habits of correct speech because 
our methods have not caused the pupils to feel the need 
of correct speech and have not constantly practised 
them in it. It is not necessary to go into detail in de- 
scribing this type of unsocialized subject-matter. The 
movement for the elimination of such matter and the 
substitution of vital material has been so pronounced 
in recent years that alert teachers are alive to the 
situation. 

It is not, however, merely a question of subject-mat- 
ter, but one of guidance as well. The study of Latin, 
for example, is of cultural and vocational value to some 
boys and girls and should be retained in the curriculum. 
But for many others it has no value, because it is im- 
possible for them to learn it, or to become interested in 
it, or because of the little service it can ever render 
them in the vocations which they are likely to follow. 
There are still high schools in which every boy and girl 
must pursue the study of Latin, or geometry, or algebra, 
or of other subjects that, for many, have no cultural or 
vocational value. For many boys and girls these studies 



190 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

are of no more value than cube and square root in 
arithmetic and should be eliminated from their curricu- 
lums. The subject-matter in all the courses must 
be just as vital to the immediate needs of boys and 
girls as it is possible to make it, and every pupil must 
be directed into those courses that are significant to 
him. Given such subject-matter and a proper guidance 
of pupils into courses and curriculums, a situation is 
created that forms the basis for socialized instruction. 

In such instruction the emphasis will be placed upon 
pupil participation and co-operation. The teacher will 
keep herself in the background just as much as is con- 
sistent with economy of time. Frequently the pupils 
will work together in the collection of material and in 
the presentation of it so that the class will become an 
open forum for discussion. Every pupil who presents a 
proposition will be obliged to defend it by citation of 
authority or by adequate proof. They will not wait 
for questions from the teacher but will often question 
one another and will carry on the work of the class fre- 
quently without direction. When a class is working 
in this spirit a premium is put upon individual investi- 
gation, reading, and research. The pupils are dominated 
by a spirit of inquiry and respect for the truth and a 
desire to know the truth. Only in such an atmosphere 
can be developed those qualities of leadership and intel- 
ligent following fundamental to the life of a democracy. 

A large element among American teachers, particu- 
larly in the colleges and universities, has been accus- 
tomed to decry the importance of the study of methods in 
the preparation of teachers. This element has scorned 
the work of the normal schools and of other teacher- 
training agencies and the insistence of public-school 
supervisors on the development of efficient methods. 



SOCIALIZED RECITATION 191 

But there is ample evidence of the power of the methods 
employed in the classroom in forming the character 
of a nation. Modern public-school systems have now 
been in existence over a hundred years, and we can 
begin to judge them by their results. Without doubt 
the German schools have been the chief factor in the 
creation of a nation blind in its devotion to a ruthless, 
autocratic government. The loyalty of the German 
people to the Hohenzollern autocracy was created first 
of all in the German classroom. 

In a recent address Dean James E. Russell described 
the results of the methods used in the German schools. 
I quote at length. 

In school he [the German boy} finds himself in a class of 
thirty or forty other boys of the same age, the same social 
status, and with the same general purpose in life. . . . His 
schoolroom is generally unadorned save by portraits of the 
emperor and empress, the crown prince, and perhaps a few 
other notables. The room is not surrounded by blackboards 
as in American schools. A small board stands on an easel be- 
side the teacher's desk — the most significant fact in the equip- 
ment of a German school. It means a type of work wholly 
foreign to our mode of recitation. In fact, I know of no word 
in the German language that will adequately translate our word 
"recitation." The German boy does not recite lessons; he re- 
ceives instruction. He is never assigned tasks wholly new to 
be worked out at home. Home tasks are by way of reviews or 
elaboration of what has been learned in school. And what he 
learns at school is given him by his teachers. He is never en- 
couraged to guess at anything. 

His teacher knows what he should learn, and under the skil- 
ful guidance of a master he learns what is set down for his grade 
to acquire in the most expeditious way and without mistakes. 
He has no text-books with elaborate foot-notes, glossary, and 
compendium. In history, for example, the text is what we 
should call a syllabus and in mathematics it is a collection of 
problems. He rarely consults a reference book and he is denied 



192 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

the use of a library except under a teacher's guidance. It is a 
teacher's business to teach, not to waste a pupil's time in hap- 
hazard guessing. So the boy goes to school every day, in win- 
ter before daylight, returning after dark at night. 

In the making of Germans little weight is attached to the 
content of the curriculum. . . . The principle that methods 
of teaching and modes of discipline make the man, while what 
he learns determines his career, will surprise some Americans 
who have delighted to deride methods as a hobby of those who 
have nothing to teach. Their idolatry of German scholarship, 
moreover, would be more intelligible if they knew the signifi- 
cance of German methods of instruction. . . . 

By example and precept, by persuasion if possible or by force 
if necessary, the German teacher attains the end to which his 
profession leads — "the making of God-fearing, patriotic, self- 
supporting subjects of imperial Germany." 

This legend, just quoted, stands at the head of every official 
document issued by the Prussian ministry of education for the 
guidance of teachers in the conduct of school work. The direct 
object is summed up in the one word "subject" — not citizens 
in a democratic or representative government but subjects of 
an imperial power. Military rule demands obedience, implicit, 
unhesitating, cheerful obedience. The ideal of German patriot- 
ism bears its first fruit in the German school when boys learn 
to respect authority, to believe what they are taught, and to 
acquire the habits, mental and physical, of their masters. . . . 

The state that depends upon military power for its security 
and advancement must imitate and, so far as I can see, any 
variation whatever from the German norm would be a confes- 
sion of weakness. But if other ideals control, such as the 
theory that the greatest good of all is best subserved by the 
highest development of each, some other system of education 
must be found that will assure civil order and social security. 

No thoughtful student of education will claim that 
the case for the German schools has been overstated by 
Doctor Russell. His description may be accepted a9 
the cold and scientific analysis of an authority. 

When we reflect that the spirit of modern Germany 
ha9 been created by these methods and that it9 sys- 



SOCIALIZED RECITATION 



193 



tern of schools has been used in an attempt to make 
an autocratic power master of the world, that the dia- 
bolical efficiency of the German schools threatened the 
development and happiness of all liberal peoples, and 
endangered the very existence of democracy on the 
earth, the imperative need for developing right methods 
in American classrooms is vividly apparent. 

No one would contend that such a spirit as has been 
described above has characterized our methods. Here 
there has been more freedom, more encouragement of 
study and research, of initiative and independent 
thought, more toleration, but our methods have been 
rather unconscious than conscious, and, in many re- 
spects, have not been calculated to develop a thinking 
citizenship. 

Miss Romiett Stevens, of Teachers College, Columbia 
University, in her doctor's thesis made a study of the 
use of the question in the American classroom. She 
had stenographic reports made of many recitations in 
the high schools and in some classes in the upper grades 
of the elementary schools of New York City and vicin- 
ity. This study reveals some very interesting condi- 
tions. The following are typical results of her inves- 
tigations: 

LENGTH OF RECITATION, FORTY-FIVE MINUTES 



SUBJECT 


NO. CASES 


LOWEST NUMBER 
OF QUESTIONS 


HIGHEST 
NUMBER 


English 


19 
20 

17 


25 " 39 " 49 " 55 

41-43-53-61 

35 - 56 - 68 - 70 


200 
142 
165 


History 


Mathematics 



Miss Stevens followed several groups of pupils 
throughout the day, in order, as she said, "to find out 



194 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

the amount and kind of intellectual stimulus meted out 
to our pupils by the questions." 
Here are the records of two groups: 

FIRST-YEAR HIGH SCHOOL— FORTY-MINUTE PERIODS 

German 176 questions. 

English 88 

Algebra 120 

Latin 61 

Science 71 

Total 516 

7TH-GRADE GROUP— THIRTY-MINUTE PERIODS 

History , 76 questions. 

Mathematics 85 " 

English (two periods) 97 " 

French 65 " 

Geography 88 " 

Total , 411 

The cases given are only typical of what Miss Stevens 
found and may be assumed to be fairly typical of con- 
ditions existing generally even in the better schools 
throughout the country. There are, of course, many 
excellent teachers who are far more effective, some who 
are skilled in throwing the maximum of responsibility 
upon the group and the individual, and in giving the 
maximum of opportunity for thought and self-expres- 
sion. But these teachers are pioneers, while the great 
body of instructors in American high schools are using 
the methods so graphically portrayed by Miss Stevens. 
What opportunity is there for the cultivation of initia- 
tive, for stimulating intellectual curiosity or indepen- 
dent thinking, for practice in co-operation, in recita- 
tions in which the teacher asks in forty-five-minute 
periods from 100 to 200 questions. Think of a first- 



SOCIALIZED RECITATION 195 

year high school group facing a daily machine-gun fire 
of 516 questions or of a 7th-grade group facing a daily 
fusillade of 411 questions! What opportunity could 
there be for thinking ? Why should a teacher ask even 
55 questions in an English recitation of forty-five min- 
utes? It is recognized, of course, that in some recita- 
tions where drill is the aim a large number of questions 
may be legitimately asked, but it was not such recita- 
tions that Miss Stevens was investigating. 

Miss Stevens has admirably analyzed the results ob- 
tained by this method of instruction. In pointing out 
the weaknesses of this method, she has at the same time 
emphasized some of the processes that must go on in 
the right type of class-meeting. She says: 

The large number of questions suggests that the teacher is 
doing most of the work of the class hour instead of directing the 
pupils in the doing. One reason why 1 50 questions can be asked 
in forty minutes is due to the fact that the teacher can think 
more rapidly and talk more rapidly than his pupils, and so, in 
order to cover a large amount of subject-matter, he carries the 
trend of the lesson through his questions, the pupils merely 
punctuating the series with short answers from the text. 

The large number of questions suggests that whenever teach- 
ers, either individually or collectively, preserve such a pace for 
any length of time, the largest educational assets that can be 
reckoned are verbal memory and superficial judgment. It is quite 
obvious that with the rapid-fire method of questioning there is 
no time allowed a pupil to go very far afield in his experience in 
order to recall or to associate ideas in fruitful ways. He is called 
upon merely to reflect somebody else — the author of his text- 
book generally — in small and carefully dissected portions, or to 
give forth snap judgments at the point of the bayonet. 

A method that, with amplification and refinement, 
would serve admirably the ends of German autocracy. 



196 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

Miss Stevens further emphasizes, by contrast, essen- 
tials in good method. 

When pupils become interested in their work and begin to 
think for themselves, it is very natural for them to ask ques- 
tions, and they will do it invariably if allowed to do so. In the 
elementary school the children are encouraged to seek informa- 
tion, but in high school there is no time apparently for individual 
initiative. Take what the text-book gives you and be satisfied 
seems to be the watchword of many classrooms. A glance 
through the stenographic reports shows that few questions are 
asked by the pupils, and when asked they are passed over 
apologetically or deferred to a more convenient season. . . . 

The large number of questions suggests that in actual prac- 
tice there is very little effort put forth to teach our boys and girls 
to be self-reliant, independent mental workers. The discrepancy 
between our theory and practice is nowhere more patent. 

There is no use in claiming to teach boys and girls how to 
study and how to command their own intellectual forces by the 
current practice of keeping them at the point of the bayonet in 
rehearsal of text-book facts at the rate of two or four per 
minute. 

The principles that should govern teaching in the 
secondary schools are not fundamentally different from 
those that should govern in the elementary schools or 
in higher institutions of learning, but it is the secondary 
school that is charged with the responsibility of the edu- 
cation of youth in its most impressionable years. It is 
imperative, therefore, that American secondary-school 
teachers give the utmost attention to this problem and 
endeavor through continuous experimentation to de- 
velop those methods best calculated to train good citi- 
zens for the republic. 

The outstanding features of these methods are already 
clearly discernible. 



SOCIALIZED RECITATION 197 

i. The questioning done by the teacher must be well 
planned and with a view to provoking thought and dis- 
cussion on the part of the class. There must be just as 
little questioning as is consistent with economy of time 
and thought. Time and opportunity must be given 
for the pupils to think and to express their own thoughts. 
Class discussion is necessary. The pupils must cease 
to wait always on the questions or on the direction of 
the teacher. 

2. If scientific questioning is to be done, the assign- 
ments must be carefully made. The chief responsibility 
of the teacher in conducting the work of the class will 
be in planning assignments of work that will result in 
good recitations. 

3. In aJl work there must be a constant effort to make 
the subject-matter of instruction of vital interest and of 
practical value to the pupils through relating it to life 
and to community interests. The pupil who leaves the 
study of Latin without having had his use of the mother 
tongue perceptibly improved or without having felt in 
the study of the Latin literature some of the universal 
experiences and longings of the race, and having had 
his outlook on life and his sympathies broadened thereby, 
has not been well taught. In physiology and hygiene, 
or in community civics, many community problems 
should be studied by the class. In like manner history, 
English, geography, the sciences should be used to 
stimulate the interest of the boys and girls in practical 
problems. In some subjects the relation may seem 
remote but often the remoteness is more apparent than 
real. 

4. Finally, every opportunity must be used for form- 
ing in the boys and girls the habits of co-operation, 
prejudices in favor of the social good, interest in com- 



198 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

munity affairs, and the desire to assume civic respon- 
sibilities. When we have set out to attain these ends 
some of the sins of the past will become virtues. For 
example, it will probably no longer be an unpardonable 
sin for one pupil to help another. Instead, a premium 
will be put on certain forms of co-operation and team- 
work among members of the class. Intellectual curi- 
osity will be stimulated and prized. Efforts will be 
made to give special opportunities for the exceptionally 
gifted pupils with a view to giving them the most ade- 
quate training possible for leadership. 

The application of these principles will vary in dif- 
ferent subjects. There is, for example, far less oppor- 
tunity for certain types of initiative in the study of 
mechanical drawing than there is in the study of Eng- 
lish. In mechanical drawing much of the work must 
be by imitation. In this subject the pupil must spend 
a great part of his time implicitly following directions. 
In following these directions there is little room for in- 
dependence of thought, but when he has mastered the 
fundamentals of the subject there is ample room for the 
employment of the project method. The pupil may be 
required to make drawings by copying or he may be 
given projects to work out on his own responsibility 
or in co-operation with his fellows. In some schools 
mechanical-drawing classes have designed and drawn 
the plans for furniture, residences, gymnasiums, school- 
buildings, and for many other real projects. 

Every subject offers its opportunities. A group in a 
class in physiology and hygiene made a study of the 
milk-supply of the city. Before they had finished a 
thorough investigation they had widened their scientific 
knowledge and had gained a new insight and a new 
interest in many practical civic problems. The English 



SOCIALIZED RECITATION 199 

classes in a large high school made a survey of all the 
mistakes in grammar in all classes, and in a Good Eng- 
lish Week conducted a campaign for better use of the 
mother tongue. Citizens addressed the pupils on the 
value of good English in business, in social intercourse, 
and in the professions. At the close of the week the 
study of English had a greater significance to every 
boy and girl in the school, and at the same time pupils 
and teachers had done much toward discovering not 
only the defects that must be corrected but the methods 
of correcting them. A class in geometry made a most 
interesting collection of problems drawn from every-day 
life, illustrating the principles which they were studying. 
To many the subject of geometry would seem most 
difficult of socialization, but for this class the subject 
seemed practical. A subject that cannot be made of 
vital and immediate interest to the boys and girls prob- 
ably ha9 no place in the curriculum. 

In the first century and a quarter of their existence 
the public schools of the United States have been suc- 
cessful. If America was true to her ideals in entering 
the World War on the side of the liberal governments, 
that fact was largely due to her public schools. The 
schools have fostered in the hearts of the boys and girls 
the love of freedom and a faith in democracy. America 
was slow in coming to a full realization of the issues at 
stake in the great conflict. For more than two years 
and a half she remained out of the struggle unconvinced 
of her duty, but at all times, thanks to the public schools, 
the people were at heart deeply in sympathy with the 
Allies in their fight for democracy, and finally their 
training and their faith led them in. 

No single generation can solve the problems of democ- 
racy or fully achieve it. Every epoch will bring forth 



200 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

its new problems. The welfare of free governments 
requires that the methods employed in the public schools 
be such as to insure that each generation will be pre- 
pared for its responsibilities. It is imperative that we 
become nationally conscious of these methods. Public 
safety will no longer permit the large body of American 
high school teachers to drift along in their work largely 
unconscious of the meaning of the methods which they 
employ. 

There are many signs of unrest. Some fear that we 
are entering a period fraught with many dangers. The 
schools must stand as the bulwark against violent revo- 
lution. They must do this first by so educating all the 
people in politics, economics, and sociology that they 
can have the basic information for thinking their prob- 
lems through to solution, and, second, by developing in 
them the ability to initiate and co-operate, and the spirit 
of fair play and toleration upon which all co-operation 
must be based. 

The method employed in the public high schools of 
America is a matter of national concern. If a nation 
loyal to Prussian autocracy could be created in a half- 
century by the methods used in the German schools, 
then it follows that the American public schools may 
be used for the national weal or woe. The great Ameri- 
can experiment cannot succeed if the public schools do 
not create a citizenship with a faith in democracy and 
with the capacity for carrying on the experiment. 



SUPERVISED STUDY 

Few movements affecting so vitally the traditional 
organization of the American secondary school have 
gained such wide-spread recognition as has supervised 
study. A decade or two ago the secondary schools of 
this country held sacred the proposition that forty min- 
utes was the length of the classroom exercise. The pu- 
pils were dismissed at the end of the forty minutes with 
the assignment that so many problems were to be solved 
before the corresponding hour of the next day. How 
they were solved, the methods used, the time wasted, 
the habits formed, or the disgust and dislike for the 
subject because of inability to do the work assigned — 
these were not the concern of the school. The teacher's 
duty was to test the pupils in such a way as to detect 
how much and how well they had done their work. It 
was her duty to mark zero for the day the lad who 
failed to report any problems solved. A splendid in- 
spiration for the next day's work ! 

During the past decade there has been a gradual 
shifting of the emphasis from the recitation to the 
supervision of study. There is no section of the coun- 
try in which some of the leading secondary schools are 
not organized definitely for the supervision of study. 
In a recent survey it was discovered that in an un- 
selected group of schools from Ohio to California super- 
vised-study programmes had been worked out in repre- 
sentative schools in all parts of the country, and that 
the number operating such programmes was compara- 
tively large. 

One of the most significant facts bearing upon this 

201 



202 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

topic is found in the proceedings of the North Central 
Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools for the 
year 191 7. The association formally recognized in its 
191 7 meeting a new type of period by adopting the fol- 
lowing resolution: "Additional time added to the reci- 
tation period as denned under present North Central 
Association Standard, for the purpose of supervised 
study, shall not be interpreted to mean a double period 
but a single recitation study period. " This was an 
important forward step. Some state inspectors hold- 
ing to the letter of the previous standards of the associa- 
tion had refused to accredit schools operating a super- 
vised study programme, especially if the teachers were 
teaching more than 240 minutes daily. 

While serving as chairman of the Commission on 
Unit Courses and Curricula of the North Central Asso- 
ciation, Doctor Charles Hughes Johnston called the at- 
tention of the association particularly to that standard 
of accrediting secondary schools which reads: 

"The efficiency of instruction, the acquired habits of 
thought and study, the general intellectual and moral 
tone of a school are paramount factors, and, therefore, 
only schools which rank well in these particulars, as 
evidenced by rigid, thoroughgoing, sympathetic inspec- 
tion, shall be considered eligible for the accredited list." 

In the work which he began he recognized that the 
association was taking note of the new function of the 
school in assuming the responsibility for acquired habits 
of thought and study. Accordingly, in discussing the 
efforts of schoolmen to elaborate the possibilities of a 
qualitative definition of the unit of high school work, 
based upon the best practice in North Central high 
schools, he says: "The present report, Part II . . . 
with the modifications our commission will suggest 



SUPERVISED STUDY 203 

presently represents, therefore, clearly a careful attempt 
to propose to the association a set of recommendations 
which do definitely touch the pedagogical problem 
avoided so completely by the quantitative unit." In 
part II of the report to which Doctor Johnston referred 
the first sentence reads: "It is recommended that longer 
periods be provided for purposes of supervised study." 
Later in this same report there is a recommendation 
that in schools operating a supervised-study schedule 
the laboratory periods should be study-recitation periods 
of from sixty to seventy-five minutes in length, in ac- 
cordance with the standards proposed by the Commit- 
tee on Reorganization of Secondary Education of the 
National Educational Association. 

Clearly supervised study has already made itself felt 
in the organization, administration, and standardiza- 
tion of modern high schools. But this applies particu- 
larly to the senior cycle of secondary education. In the 
junior high school, whether because of its closer connec- 
tions with the practices of the elementary school, or be- 
cause of a greater felt need for it, supervised study is 
universally the custom. 

In many cities where new modern junior high school 
plants are either projected or are under way, the old- 
time study room is conspicuous for its absence. That 
supervised study is commonly recognized for the junior 
high school is evidenced by the additional fact that the 
North Central Association has gone on record, recom- 
mending that "the junior high school at least make co- 
ordinate its emphasis upon the direction of study and 
the traditional activity of reciting." It has further 
recommended "a daily schedule of six full hours of 
study, recitation, or laboratory work, and five full hours 
as a maximum teaching schedule." 



204 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

The attempt to standardize an educational practice 
by such an organization as the North Central Associa- 
tion is an indication that that practice has become a 
fixed part of the administrative organization of the sec- 
ondary school. In fact, this marks the beginning of the 
second stage of a movement — that stage in which there 
is an attempt to evaluate the relative merit of this or 
that type of organization. The merit of the movement 
itself is no longer questioned. It seems reasonably safe 
to assume that supervised study has become a widely 
acknowledged responsibility of the secondary school. 

There are certain fundamental reasons why the super- 
vision of study has outlived its day of "fad" and has 
become recognized as the school's responsibility. 

In the first place, thoughtful educational writers, be- 
ginning with McMurry in his book "How to Study" 
and continuing with Judd, Parker, Hall-Quest, John- 
ston, Colvin, and others, have championed supervision 
of study as a part of the school's work. They have 
advocated either a type of organization that would pro- 
vide definitely for supervision of study or a socializa- 
tion of the recitation itself so that the emphasis would 
be shifted from the formal work of reciting to pupil 
co-operative effort. 

Of the latter type of recitation Dewey is the best ex- 
ponent and gives the clearest statement. He says: 

"Where the school work consists in simply learning 
lessons, mutual assistance, instead of being the most 
natural form of co-operation and association, becomes a 
clandestine effort to relieve one's neighbor of his proper 
duties. Where active work is going on, all this is 
changed. Helping others, instead of being a form of 
charity which impoverishes the recipient, is simply an 
aid in setting free the powers and furthering the im- 



SUPERVISED STUDY 205 

pulse of the one helped. A spirit of free communica- 
tion, of interchange of ideas, suggestions, results, both 
successes and failures of previous experiences, becomes 
the dominating note of the recitation. So far as emula- 
tion enters in, it is in the comparison of individuals, not 
with regard to the quantity of information personally- 
absorbed, but with reference to the quality of work 
done — the genuine community standard of value. In 
an informal but all the more pervasive way, the school 
life organizes itself on a social basis." 

In outlining the work before the Commission on Unit 
Courses and Curricula of the North Central Associa- 
tion, Doctor Johnston stated that " Supervised study 
means something much more fundamental than some 
arbitrary lengthening of the class period, and mechani- 
cal division of its activities into study and reciting. It 
means a new kind of educating process and a new ideal 
of mental economy and of co-operative intellectual 
work through class or group organization." 

These are good pictures of the spirit of supervised 
study. Any change in organization that does not in- 
clude a complete socialization of the work in the class- 
room misses the real point involved. Supervision of 
study is more than a negative solution of the problem 
of securing preparation on the part of the pupil. It is 
the means by which the recitation becomes a laboratory 
in which activity on the part of the pupil precedes the 
giving of information by the teacher. 

In the second place, supervised study undoubtedly 
has some psychological justification. Judd has written 
an excellent chapter on the psychological aspects of the 
problem in his " Psychology of High School Subjects." 
He makes it clear that there are sound reasons for in- 
cluding supervised study in the school programme. 



206 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

Colvin, in discussing supervised study, emphasizes 
also its psychological aspects. "It is the teacher," he 
says, "who should aid and lead his pupils in their schol- 
arly pursuits; he should not appear, more than is abso- 
lutely necessary, as an umpire in the game of learning, 
or as a taskmaster, who exacts his dues. More and 
more it is being recognized that the teacher must be a 
teacher in the only sense in which the word can be justly 
used, namely, in the sense of one who helps those under 
his instruction to secure knowledge, to acquire skill, 
to obtain insight and to gain appreciation. . . . The 
conduct of the recitation will be changed, much to its 
advantage. . . . Supervised study means the elimina- 
tion of lesson-hearing, so often the bane of high school 
teaching to-day. When the necessity for testing the 
knowledge of the pupil and for drilling him during the 
class exercises no longer exists, then the teacher will be 
compelled to use the recitation to realize the main pur- 
pose for which it exists, namely, for the stimulation of 
interests, for the acquiring of insights and appreciation, 
and for the development of reflective thinking." 

Among the psychological aspects of the problem, sev- 
eral which carry weight might well be discussed briefly. 
It might be stated that the ones which follow are gen- 
erally those advanced by schoolmen to convince boards 
of education that a supervised-study programme should 
be adopted. 

(a) Pupils left to study alone, especially at home, 
lose much time unnecessarily. 

Very few pupils of their own initiative get down to 
work at home without some loss of time, and after they 
do begin they permit many interruptions. 

(b) Pupils studying at home often acquire bad habits 
of study. 



SUPERVISED STUDY 207 

In many instances it is expecting too much of the 
pupil to suppose that he will work out efficient habits 
and methods of work. He will blunder along, and out 
of this blundering come his habits of work. 

(c) The teacher, generally speaking, is a better guide 
than the parent or fellow pupil. 

In the Hammond, Ind., high school, in which super- 
vised study is in operation, a bright little fellow in an 
algebra class was asked how he liked supervised study. 
He replied that he liked it because it saved time and he 
could secure better help of his teachers than he formerly 
got elsewhere. He admitted that before the introduc- 
tion of supervised study he often borrowed the work of 
other pupils and was able to bluff his way through class. 

It is well-known that parents, in their eagerness to help 
pupils, will practically assume the responsibility of pre- 
paring the lessons from night to night. 

(d) Supervised study makes better provision for in- 
dividual differences. 

Thorndike and others have demonstrated that within 
the same class some pupils will do four, &ve y or even 
seven times as much as others. With a properly social- 
ized supervised-study type of recitation provision can 
be made for these differences. An example of this 
is to be found in the experiment conducted in the 
Springfield, 111., high school where a constructive at- 
tempt has been made, especially in Latin and mathe- 
matics, to organize the work to provide for individual 
differences. 

(e) Supervised study brings the teacher into closer 
personal contact with the pupils. 

It gives the teacher a chance to see how pupils work. 
It reveals their weaknesses and strong points, their likes 
and dislikes, their methods of study and attitude. The 



208 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

teacher becomes acquainted with the real problems of 
student life. 

Teachers working under a supervised-study plan will 
often change their lesson plans after the recitation is 
under way because they can see that they are not meeting 
the needs of the pupils that day. Likewise teachers will 
frequently change their assignment before the study 
period is over. Under the older plan teachers ordinarily 
would not feel that this could be done safely. 

The teacher is not compelled to continue class in- 
struction longer than necessary to meet the general 
needs of clearing up common difficulties and of testing 
pupils on their organization of material. Beyond this 
point instruction should become largely an individual 
matter. 

(f) The period following the recitation is the oppor- 
tune time to prepare the next assignment. 

The pupils and teacher are in the mood to continue 
the work. The problem is set and is fresh. This en- 
ables the pupil to utilize immediately the class experi- 
ences and thus bonds of association are more likely to 
be definitely established between the class work and 
his individual effort. This results in greater interest 
and tends to keep the pupil in school. 

(g) It develops initiative and independence in the 
pupils. 

Instead of robbing the pupil of initiative and inde- 
pendence, supervised study results in just the opposite. 
No sensible teacher will do the work of the pupils dur- 
ing the study period. She will see to it that the pupil 
uses good study habits, does not waste time, and does 
not become discouraged because of failure. If the pupil 
asks for help she first satisfies herself that help is nec- 
essary, and if the pupil has raised the point in good 



SUPERVISED STUDY 209 

faith he puts himself in the attitude of a learner seek- 
ing knowledge. The teacher will do exactly what the 
teacher of chemistry does in the laboratory when a 
pupil cannot determine what the chemical reaction has 
been. No one will claim that the introduction of lab- 
oratory work in science has weakened the pupils and 
robbed them of their initiative and independence. 
Quite the contrary. In the same way the study period 
in mathematics becomes a laboratory for the setting up 
and the solution of real problems which arise with the 
pupil at a time when he can secure guidance, as against 
help given by a fellow pupil or a parent. 

Qi) Supervised study fulfils the best laws of learning. 

Study immediately following the recitation, in which 
the pupils have expressed in good form their prepara- 
tion, and have evaluated their material, enables the 
pupil to make immediate use of the recitation material 
in the preparation of his next day's assignment. 

It enables him to make a real beginning in the prep- 
aration of the work assigned. Any part incompleted 
must be taken up later, and this will provide for a 
second recall of the recitation material and of the ground 
covered in the preparation. Before the recitation the 
following day the pupil must organize his material, 
but this is not done as if he were trying to get his 
entire lesson just before going to class. It is a final 
effort to complete his work and definitely organize it 
for presentation. It is distinctly not " cramming." 

These distributed periods of learning, as they afford 
greater time for bonds of association to be built up, are in 
strict accord with the laws of memory and forgetting. 

It provides study at a time when the pupil is in the 
mood. This, together with the fact that he can and 
does make progress in the study period, makes him more 



210 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

anxious to complete his work. The pupil is more likely 
to feel that his preparation is identified with a need and 
thus his interest is awakened. 

The pupil will make the connection between the 
teacher's assignment and the work to be done. It will 
be discovered that the pupil under a home-study pro- 
gramme frequently leaves the classroom with vague 
notions as to the methods of attacking the next day's 
lesson, or just how to apply the suggestions which the 
teacher made. Often the child gets the wrong notion 
and the next day's work is not prepared. Supervised 
study is justified, if it does nothing more than guarantee 
to each pupil a clear understanding of the assignment 
and the suggestions as to methods and applications made 
by the teacher. 

As indirectly implied in the preceding paragraph, 
assignments will be made with extreme care. The 
teacher, who has been careless in this respect, will soon 
discover that much depends on the assignment. The 
work of the pupils will soon demonstrate any weaknesses 
in the assignment. Likewise, better teaching must be 
one of the inevitable results. 

In the third place, supervised study is justified by the 
results obtained under fair and competent teachers. 
Experimental education supports this statement. In 
the Joliet, 111., high school, failures were reduced by 
about 50 per cent in algebra, geometry, Latin, and Ger- 
man in four years. In the Bloomington, Ind., high 
school, Minnick demonstrated that supervised study in 
geometry was better than home study. Failures in the 
Richmond, Ind., high school were materially reduced 
for the school as a whole, within a two-year period. 

The type of organization by which supervised study is 
most commonly administered is that of the lengthened, 



SUPERVISED STUDY 211 

divided period. The length of the period varies from 
about sixty minutes as a minimum to ninety minutes as 
a maximum. Usually the first part of the period is given 
over to recitation and the latter part to study. In most 
schools it is customary to assign each teacher five 
classes, including teachers of the so-called laboratory 
subjects. The laboratory subjects are given no more 
time than English, for example. In some schools the 
end of the recitation part of the period is indicated by 
the ringing of a bell. This one thing has caused as 
much argument as all other phases of the organization 
put together. Until teachers have learned to minimize 
the importance of the old testing type of recitation and 
give it its true evaluation, there is every reason to be- 
lieve that teachers must be required to keep within 
certain limits. In a recent survey of supervised study, 
the universal complaint of high school pupils was that 
teachers "ran over" their part of the period. Teachers 
can be the best judges of how long they should continue 
the group recitation of the question-answer type when 
they have decided to eliminate much of it from the 
classroom. It is clearly a misuse of the plan to have 
the teachers teaching in the old way for fifty of the 
sixty minutes. 

As a variation of the usual type of organization, the 
uniqueness of the plan in operation in one of the large 
Middle West high schools is described somewhat in 
detail. The school-day is one of four eighty-minute 
periods, with a "shifting" period of the same length 
which replaces one of these periods one day each week, 
except that on Monday the "shifting" period does not 
have a place. On Monday periods i, 2, 3, and 4 are 
run. On Tuesday the "shifting" period replaces the 
first; on Wednesday, the second; Thursday, the third; 



212 



HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 



and Friday, the fourth. As classes are scheduled for 
the shifting period the same as for any other, this plan 
enables the school to maintain in reality a five-period 
day with but four periods any one day. The following 
diagram will make clear the administration of this 
scheme. 



Monday . . . 
Tuesday . . . 
Wednesday 
Thursday . . 
Friday. 



Shifting 



2 

Shifting 

2 

2 



3 
3 
3 m 

Shifting 

3 



4 
4 
4 
4. 
Shifting 



A full-time subject, such as algebra, Latin, English, 
meets four days each week. If, for example, a pupil 
takes English the first period he attends class on Mon- 
day, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday only, the shift- 
ing period replacing the first period on Tuesday. Under 
this plan it is clear that a teacher having five classes 
hears but twenty recitations per week. 

The periods are divided into recitation and study, 
with approximately forty minutes given to each. Thus 
it will be seen that the pupil carrying four subjects has 
160 minutes for supervised study on Monday and 200 
minutes each of the other days. A pupil carrying five 
studies has 160 minutes daily for supervised study. 

Naturally, objections are offered to supervised study. 
It is not a panacea for all the ills of secondary-school 
organization. Some pupils will fail to pass under super- 
vised study, and it is not as desirable for excellent pupils 
as for the weaker ones. The real objections, however, 
have to do rather with the external phases of the prob- 
lem than with the problem itself. Practically no one has 
ever disagreed with the proposition that the school 



SUPERVISED STUDY 213 

should assume the responsibility for acquired habits of 
work. 

It is argued that the organization of the school for 
purposes of definitely directing the study of pupils will 
tend to weaken the pupils and rob them of their initia- 
tive. They will come to depend too much on the 
teacher. The implication is that the teacher will do the 
pupil's work. This objection is easily answered. The 
teacher will not do the pupil's work in any scheme of 
directing study. She will use every means at her com- 
mand to make it possible for the pupil to make prog- 
ress in his work, and thus become interested and gain 
confidence in his own ability to do the tasks before him. 
Parents and fellow pupils are poorer guides and helpers 
than the teachers. They do the work for the pupils. 

One contributor to The Ladies' Home Journal for Jan- 
uary, 1 913, in discussing the arguments for supervised 
study in the school rather than home study, gave an 
example of what was happening under the title of "The 
Widow Who Was Dead Right." 

A widow came to the superintendent of schools with 
the following complaint: 

"I have four little girls attending your schools. I 
am up at five o'clock in the morning to get them off to 
school and to get myself off to work. It is six o'clock in 
the evening when I reach home again, pretty well worn 
out, and after we have had dinner and have tidied up 
the house a bit it is eight o'clock. Then, tired as I am, 
I sit down and teach the little girls the lessons your 
teachers will hear them say over on the following day. 
Now, if it is all the same to you, it would be a great help 
and favor to me if you will have your teachers teach the 
lessons during the day, and then all I would have to do 
at night would be to hear them say them over." 



214 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

It is a small incentive for the pupil to go day after day 
to class without having made satisfactory progress. In 
such cases the pupils must put in extra time with the 
teacher or fail. A little direction from time to time and 
an observation of the pupil at work will prevent much 
discouragement. Supervision will create confidence, and 
with confidence initiative and real effort will follow. 

While the majority of parents seem to favor super- 
vised-study programmes, there are always many in the 
community who object to the children having no assign- 
ments or parts of assignments to do at home. They say 
that it is much more difficult to keep their children at 
home and satisfied. This objection is strong enough to 
warrant the attention of those planning the introduc- 
tion of supervised study. 

This point raised by parents has its counterpart in 
an objection often entered by the faculty, namely, that 
pupils do not feel a sense of responsibility for further 
preparation after the close of the study period. This 
fact, for it is such, emphasizes the importance of pro- 
gressive requirements in regard to preparation. After 
the pupils have had a year or two of supervision, surely 
some home work should be required to supplement that 
done in school hours with the teacher. 

Differences in ability should also be given consider- 
able attention, and the brighter pupils should either be 
held for more work or work of a higher quality. Un- 
less this is done, a valid objection can be registered 
against supervised study. Supervised study should not 
bring the work of the bright pupils down to the level of 
the average pupils. It should accentuate differences. 
Under proper administrative control this can and will be 
done. 

It is argued that it costs more to operate a system of 



SUPERVISED STUDY 215 

directed study than a system of recitations and study 
halls. Practically speaking, the cost is no greater. In 
smaller schools it probably would require an increase in 
the teaching force. In schools of 500 pupils or more it 
will not increase the cost of instruction, as the number 
of extra classes which can be taken by all teachers of 
former double-period studies will probably offset the re- 
duction in the number of classes assigned to teachers 
who had formerly taught single-period studies. Further- 
more, fewer teachers would be required in large study 
halls. In the Kansas City, Kan., high school the cost 
was not increased to any appreciable degree. In the 
Richmond, Ind. 7 high school, with an enrolment of 750 
pupils, there was no increase, whatever, in cost. Even 
if the cost is greater, this cannot be advanced as a valid 
objection. If the direction of study is a thing of value, 
if it is a new function of the school to teach a "tech- 
nic of study," the cost may properly be greater. 

Offsetting any possible increase in cost of instruction, 
the reorganization of the school on a supervised study 
basis results in a fuller use of the school plant. It re- 
duces very materially the number of pupils having va- 
cant periods, and thus large study rooms can be divided 
up into recitation rooms. More classes can be accom- 
modated daily in the science, manual-training, and 
household-arts rooms, thus cutting down the large per 
capita equipment and laboratory overhead expense. 
Teachers will find a wider use of library facilities not 
only possible but desirable. Whole classes can be taken 
to the library for work under the direction of a trained 
librarian and the class teachers. In the English de- 
partment a part of the period can well be utilized in 
organizing and administering a course in library in- 
struction. 



216 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

The objection most commonly urged and the one 
that strikes at the very heart of directed study is that 
teachers do not know how to teach pupils how to study; 
that the directed-study part of the period is little more 
than wasted. The teachers, it is urged, are not qualified 
to undertake this work successfully. 

If the supervision of study is a worthy part of the 
school's work, it is not a valid objection to say that 
teachers are unprepared to teach pupils how to study. 
It is the duty of schools of education to give particular 
attention to this matter in the preparation of teachers. 
High school faculties should bring everything to bear on 
the solution of this problem. They should study and 
plan methods by which the largest results can be 
achieved. Twenty years ago it was impossible to get 
adequately trained teachers for the manual-training and 
household-arts branches in our schools. We began as 
best we could to organize these courses, and gradually 
raised our standards for teachers until to-day we have 
instructors as competently trained in these departments 
as in many others. The same thing will be true of the 
training and ability of teachers for the work of directing 
the study of the pupils. 

There is ample room for constructive work along this 
line within the school itself. Few high school prin- 
cipals have made constructive attempts to work out 
with their teachers principles governing the direction 
of study. Supervised study should be adopted as the 
result of study and deliberation on the part of the 
faculty rather than the determination of the executive 
head to reorganize the school. Teachers will thus feel 
some responsibility for the success of the plan, and will 
study ways and means of making the study period a 
vital part of the classroom exercise. 



SUPERVISED STUDY 217 

In any scheme for the supervision of study, attention 
must be given to the form and methods of the recitation 
with a view of emphasizing the social phases and mini- 
mizing the old question-answer, all-the-pupils-listen- 
while-Mary-explains type, but even more important 
than this is the solution of the problems of the study 
period. Physical conditions affecting study, individ- 
ualizing the work of the pupils, wasteful methods, spe- 
cific application of the materials of the recitation, diffi- 
culties common to the entire group, working out with 
the pupil a satisfactory method of procedure in the 
preparation of the lesson — these are problems that 
should engage the attention of the teachers and admin- 
istrators. A constructive attempt to solve them will 
result in a technic of study that will permanently ac- 
crue to the benefit of the pupil. In this programme 
the teacher will assume the role of a "director" in the 
recitation, but that of a "teacher" in the supervision of 
study. 



SUPERVISION OF TEACHERS AND TEACHING 

Unfortunately, in the discussion of the many problems 
of supervising the teaching staff as well as in practice, 
a clearly defined distinction between the supervision of 
teachers and of teaching has not been made. These 
two phases of staff supervision should be treated dis- 
tinctly as separate parts of the same general problem. 
There is opportunity to do a particular piece of super- 
visory work in each of these fields, and it is unfortunate 
that they have not been treated separately both in 
theory and practice with the view of developing a real 
technic in supervising teachers as well as in supervis- 
ing teaching. 

Supervision at present deals almost entirely with 
the problems of teachers in their relationships outside 
the classroom and in their disciplinary problems within 
the classroom. There is little constructive supervision 
of classroom teaching problems beyond this point. Al- 
though the greater portion of the work of supervision is 
done in the field of teacher supervision, insufficient 
attention has been given to the development of methods 
of handling the problems involved, or to the advisability 
of considering this a definite part of the supervisor's 
work. On the other hand, in supervision of teaching, 
where relatively little work is actually done by the high 
school principal in a supervisory way, many serious at- 
tempts to develop methods and check results have been 
made. 

The first business of the teacher is to teach, and we 
should give not only more attention to supervision of 

218 



TEACHERS AND TEACHING 219 

teaching but seek for means by which the one charged 
with the duties of supervision may do more effective 
work. On the other hand, when teachers are brought 
together in one large institution there are social prob- 
lems, cross-connections, and relationships that call for 
supervision of teachers. In the one-teacher school the 
teacher's problems are simple enough, but the school, 
as Doctor Charles Hughes Johnston said, is no longer 
an assemblage of teaching units. It is an institution 
with an institutional consciousness. It is quite neces- 
sary that teachers work together in harmony and that 
there be developed among them an esprit de corps. It 
is just as impossible to secure the best results in the 
modern secondary school where teachers are not work- 
ing in harmony as it is in the city when everybody is at 
cross-purposes with the city officials. 

In most schools, as has been indicated, this phase of 
supervision is handled in an unorganized, indefinite 
way. Problems are met when they arise. Often noth- 
ing is done until things become serious and teachers are 
working at cross-purposes, yet teacher co-operation and 
team-work are mighty factors in the effectiveness of the 
teaching activities of the school. Teacher supervision 
has a direct bearing on classroom instruction, and should 
be handled in a definite, constructive way. It is too 
vital to delay longer an attempt to develop a construc- 
tive technic. 

Great business organizations spend much time and 
energy in keeping up the morale of the men in their 
employ. They even engage the most expensive men to 
manage or supervise the employees in order that a 
spirit of mutual co-operation may exist among the men 
themselves and between the men and the organization. 
Certain great corporations have through the efforts of 



220 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

the executive officers or the supervisory expert built up 
an enviable shop spirit and their employees thus do their 
best work. Even prospective employees may be found 
on waiting lists because of the spirit that has been built 
up — quite apart from the matter of wages. Business 
firms have thus capitalized the results to be derived 
from the definite, constructive supervision of the work- 
ers employed. They know that it pays, and the better 
the technic the greater the pay. 

The efficiency of our national army is a splendid ex- 
ample of this kind of supervision. We may leave out 
of this discussion the necessity of individual efficiency 
and training. These factors are inherently necessary, 
but the strength of an army also depends upon co- 
operative efficiency and good-will. The people of the 
United States through far-sighted leadership saw at 
once the need of developing among the men a spirit of 
co-operation and good-will through the administration 
of certain great social programmes destined to make the 
men feel deeply the community of effort behind them 
at home and to draw them together in bonds of mutual 
understanding. Our cantonments quickly had their 
hostess houses, their Y. M. C. A. huts, and their Liberty 
theatres. For our overseas troops millions in money 
were spent to administer to their common welfare. The 
result was the greatest fighting force in the world, be- 
cause it had the spirit of co-operation and the morale. 

This work in its way is just as important in the 
present comprehensive secondary school as in business, 
or even in the national army. In the smaller school the 
problem may not be great, but in the larger school, 
where it is fundamentally necessary that teachers work 
co-operatively, the principal or heads of departments 
charged with supervisory duties must use extreme care 



TEACHERS AND TEACHING 221 

and tact to the end that the work of the school may be 
done with militant harmony. 

The supervision of teachers may keep down to a mini- 
mum differences among teachers, departmental differ- 
ences, and differences between the executive head and 
the staff. This is far from saying that there is no place 
in the system for honest differences. People of convic- 
tion should not be required to surrender their principles 
of conduct and thinking so long as they are honest and 
professional in their attitude. 

The principal of experience in a large school is apt to 
be familiar with factions in the faculty. These usually 
have grown out of issues on which there may have been 
justifiable differences of opinion. It requires great tact 
to deal with such problems and build up a co-operative 
spirit, to say nothing of preventing an actual open 
break. A principal cannot expect to maintain loyalty 
of effort and purpose in the faculty if he is unable to 
maintain the same professional attitude toward all 
members of the staff who have constructive suggestions 
to offer for the welfare of the school. It is not to be 
assumed that all teachers are equally strong or meri- 
torious, but merit should be accorded a welcome regard- 
less of its source. 

University faculties occasionally furnish glowing ex- 
amples of petty jealousies, petty politics, and wire-pull- 
ing. In discussing the internal problems of a certain 
university, one professor said that a coterie of fellow 
teachers were able to control the executive head, and 
that they often let it be known that requests from cer- 
tain members of the faculty would not be honored for 
action. He stated that no one dared approach the 
trustees over the head of the institution for fear of 
breach of loyalty. Thus hemmed in without recourse 



222 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

and with no one heading the institution with the cour- 
age to give every one a fair hearing, incipient intrigue 
and rebellion were ever present. This experience has 
been duplicated in some high schools. 

The testimony of the university professor points to 
the possible solution of such difficulties. In this day 
we talk of prevention rather than cure. Strong medi- 
cine should be the last resort. Happily a new spirit is 
springing up in the administration of both universities 
and high schools. It finds its highest expression in that 
organization of the faculty whereby the members may 
actually make contributions to the solution of the in- 
stitutional problems as they arise. In some universi- 
ties real efforts are being made to write constitutions 
which will remove autocratic methods of administration 
and democratize the faculty. In the secondary field 
some principals are organizing their faculties into stand- 
ing committees which are urged to give their best 
thought to the problems formerly held sacred by the 
principal. With some such democratic organization of 
the faculty and with an honest purpose behind it, the 
faculty need not be asked for co-operation on any im- 
portant matter of general concern. They have some 
responsibility and a voice in the institutional control of 
the school. In many matters under this arrangement 
the faculty can exercise considerable freedom. In busi- 
ness organizations esprit de corps is often secured 
through some sort of bonus system. In the school 
participation in administration will serve the same pur- 
pose. 

Participation in administration has of late been given 
a new impetus. Social unrest is operating in the pub- 
lic schools. Teachers in some instances are organizing 
and uniting or affiliating with labor-unions. They are 



TEACHERS AND TEACHING 223 

calling for definite means of securing a voice in school 
administration. They have even suggested in some in- 
stances that the classroom teachers should select the 
superintendent of schools. Indeed, the last word in 
school administration has not been written. Those 
charged with supervisory duties have a responsibility in 
the matter of directing these movements into the right 
channels. One thing seems clear. The autocratic meth- 
ods of dealing with teachers are about to become the 
relics of bygone days. The new day of co-operative ef- 
fort will call for a higher type of supervision of teachers 
than we have ever experienced before. 

Two distinct movements can be discerned in the re- 
cent developments in school administration. One ap- 
parently is directed against the present type of admin- 
istration; the other is seeking for means by which the 
problems of school administration may be worked out 
co-operatively. One is more or less mandatory; the 
other more strictly professional. Both call for careful 
consideration. 

If teachers feel that real democracy in school admin- 
istration can be attained only by the organization of 
classroom teachers or by affiliating with some class or 
faction in our society, the situation is serious indeed. 
This feeling must be reckoned with. It must be guided. 
This movement, if it may be called such, should be 
directed into the channel of co-operative effort. Our 
house must not be divided. Class or group organiza- 
tions of teachers must be justified or condemned in the 
final analysis upon their work. It is to be hoped that 
teachers and administrators alike will work for the 
development of that high type of co-operation which 
springs from mutual confidence and community effort. 

The N. E. A. Commission on the Emergency in Edu- 



224 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

cation has rendered the profession a great service in 
directing recent tendencies in school administration. 
This commission advocated the formation of teachers' 
councils on a comprehensive basis and the suggestion 
has met with general favor. The teachers' council is 
designed to bring together the entire teaching force for 
the solution of school problems and policies. It will 
enable various teacher organizations within any given 
system to work together and thus insure real democracy 
in school administration. 

"No educational suggestion," says the December, 
1 91 9, N. E. A. Bulletin , "has ever been taken up more 
quickly and more generally throughout the entire coun- 
try than that of the N. E. A. Commission on the Emer- 
gency in Education concerning the organization of 
teachers' councils. Two items in the suggestion met 
with instant approval everywhere, that of an organiza- 
tion in which teacher, supervisor, and principal could 
work together, and that of requiring by law that all 
questions of school policy be submitted to the teachers' 
council for consideration before being made effective by 
the board of education. 

"Teachers, superintendents, and school officers were 
alike ready for this recommendation, and the commis- 
sion was the one body in a position to say the word. 
Hundreds of teachers' councils have been organized 
during the last four weeks. A teacher council wave is 
literally sweeping over the country. Councils are being 
organized rapidly and boards of education are preparing 
rules in harmony with the general plan. It is based on 
the principle of democracy in school administration. 
This is one of the most important steps in the educa- 
tional progress of the year. It prepares for team-work 
in every school system. It does not do away with 



TEACHERS AND TEACHING 225 

other organizations among teachers, but it provides a 
means for all getting together on the best things thought 
out in special groups and elsewhere. Without this all- 
inclusive group there is ever the danger of a house 
divided against itself instead of a house whose parts 
are bound solidly together. With all forces working to- 
gether, great things will be accomplished during the 
period of reconstruction in education." 

Aside from the maintenance of an esprit de corps 
and building up a spirit of co-operation in school ad- 
ministration the renewed emphasis upon such matters 
as the social organization of the school, professional 
growth, and a professional attitude toward administra- 
tive changes makes the constructive supervision of 
teachers an essential matter. 

With the clearer conception of the school as a social 
institution wherein should be utilized the social activi- 
ties of boys and girls as a means of inculcating those 
social, civic, and moral virtues essential to good citizen- 
ship, as a means of training in leadership, and, finally, as 
a means of democratizing the school, the organization 
and control of extra-classroom activities have become 
not only expedient but positively necessary. In our 
better schools the teachers who have not assumed some 
responsibility for the guidance of social activities are 
not fulfilling their full duty. The day has passed when 
teachers can count the day's work done when they have 
heard their last class. 

Faculties often must be converted to this point of 
view and frequently opposition arises. To carry on a 
constructive social programme the principal must be 
able to give and take in the assignment of duties to 
teachers. At first much of the work may have to be 
done through voluntary workers, and the head of the 



226 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

school need not be surprised if some teachers, individ- 
ualistic in their training and " teaching" experience, 
actually oppose social activities. Such discouragements 
should not be taken too seriously. In one high school 
the work has progressed so far that a committee of the 
faculty now devotes nearly all of its time to supervising 
the faculty and pupils in their social activities. The 
teachers in this school expect, as a part of their work, 
to sponsor some club or society, and the faculty com- 
mittee has had to formulate definite rules of procedure 
in the matter of the formation of new clubs and in the 
control of social activities. 

If the school authorities have a fraternity problem, 
or other equally grave social issue to face, it is very 
essential that teachers have the social point of view. 
There are no more certain means to rid the school of 
secret societies than to supplant them with justifiable 
social activities which make just as strong an appeal to 
the adolescent boy or girl as loyalty to any particular 
clique. Supervision of teachers is a very important fac- 
tor in the successful prosecution of an extensive social 
programme. 

The supervision of teachers outside of the classroom 
and without direct reference to the actual technic used 
in class instruction is the source of much of the inspira- 
tion leading to professional reading and study. It 
is largely through the work of teachers* meetings, the 
individual and casual conferences with teachers, that 
they are awakened to the need of further study and 
preparation. Sometimes this inspiration grows out of 
actual classroom supervision, but more often it comes 
from the other sources mentioned. No doubt more in- 
spiration should come from constructive classroom su- 
pervision, but until more of this work is done, and even 



TEACHERS AND TEACHING 227 

then, much of it will come from supervision of teachers. 
Principals, then, may well regard their personal contact 
with teachers outside of class as an opportunity to in- 
spire them to further study and reading. 

A professional attitude, even an experimental one, 
toward such innovations as supervised study is secured 
largely through supervision of teachers rather than 
teaching. Paving the way is done through committee 
work, through consultation with individuals, and through 
faculty meetings. A system of weighted credits can be 
introduced without waiting for the right attitude on 
the part of a majority of the teachers, but the principal 
has enough responsibility in any such matter without 
having to carry the opposition of a large number on the 
staff. 

The preceding points thus indicate the reasons for and 
the possibilities of that phase of staff supervision which 
touches the extra-classroom relationships and activities 
of the teachers. They indicate the need not only of 
recognizing a distinction between the work of supervis- 
ing teachers and that of teaching but also of giving the 
former more constructive attention. It is quite clear 
that teacher supervision is not independent of instruc- 
tional supervision. There is here, however, a field of 
administrative activity that has not been sufficiently 
stressed in the past. It will pay to set about develop- 
ing a kind of procedure that gives the supervisor a real 
chance to demonstrate qualities of leadership in super- 
vision. There is ample opportunity. 

The point of view stressed here is the need of atten- 
tion to this work as such. The supervisor should take 
the lead in matters of this kind, and direct the faculty 
rather than be directed by the course of events from day 
to day. The work that has been done has been too 



228 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

haphazard, too much like guesswork, too much given to 
keeping the machinery going. It seems evident that 
too much depends upon the co-operation, good-will, and 
professional interests of teachers to leave this work to 
be handled carelessly. 

While supervision of teachers is important, as has 
been pointed out, it is not more important than super- 
vision of classroom teaching. The need of constructive 
supervision in classroom teaching is perhaps greater in 
the secondary school than in any other unit in our pub- 
lic-school system. Until quite recently the training of 
secondary-school teachers did not include practice in 
the technic of classroom instruction. Few schools of 
education have as yet adequately provided for actual 
training in technic based upon the theory of teaching 
and other courses. What has been done is not yet as 
thorough nor as extensive as that provided for elemen- 
tary teachers. The training of inexperienced teachers 
in the secondary schools is yet largely in the hands of 
the secondary-school head and his assistants. 

In schools up to thirty or thirty-five teachers the 
principal can be held directly responsible for the super- 
vision of teaching. In a school of thirty-five teachers 
he should be given one assistant principal and two full- 
time clerks. As the number of teachers increases he 
should be supplied with more clerical help, and possibly 
he should have a second assistant principal in order 
that he may devote as much time as possble to the 
larger problems of supervision. In a school of seventy- 
five teachers there should be at least four office clerks 
and two assistant principals or advisers, one each for the 
boys and girls. The assistants should give practically 
all of their time to administrative work. Supervision 
of teaching should remain the duty of the principal as 



TEACHERS AND TEACHING 229 

long as he can do the work satisfactorily. In the larger 
schools some of this work may be delegated to the heads 
of departments, who should have part-time teaching 
schedules. If heads of departments do supervisory 
work, they should have the same general point of view 
as the principal. Even in the largest school the princi- 
pal should look upon real supervision as one of his main 
duties. 

The reason for so little supervision is threefold. In 
the first place, the principal is usually so tied down with 
the petty details of his office that he cannot find time 
to talk individually with his teachers, to say nothing of 
spending on the average two hours a day in the class- 
rooms. In the second place, the superintendent often 
assumes the responsibility for selecting teachers, and 
hence the principal does not feel that he must supervise 
the teaching. Third, and most important, the princi- 
pal in many cases is not qualified to do the work. 

To be a successful supervisor of teaching the princi- 
pal, himself, should be a masterful teacher in at least 
one line of work, and be thoroughly familiar with the 
educational literature in that line. He will find it help- 
ful to illustrate by teaching a class the point or points 
he wishes to emphasize with the teachers. Aside from 
courses in the theory and practice of teaching, and prob- 
lems of method, the supervisor should at least have 
pursued thorough courses in the history of education, 
pure, experimental, and applied psychology, including 
child study, and philosophy of education. As an ad- 
ministrator he should, of course, have pursued various 
courses in the organization and administration of school 
systems. Aside from his educational preparation, the 
principal ought to be interested in the technic of teach- 
ing and be an active student of the problems of method. 



230 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

He will be more efficient if he is also a student of 
human nature, sympathetic and level-headed. 

With this educational equipment and these personal 
qualifications, the principal may well keep before him at 
least three important factors essential in constructive 
supervision. First, in co-operation with the teachers a 
philosophy of education or faith upon which the "fash- 
ion" of the classroom instruction in the school will de- 
pend should be developed. The problems of teaching 
should be attacked co-operatively. The principal or 
supervisor will not wish to force his point of view upon 
the teachers. Teachers cannot be expected to change 
their methods or view-point with every change in prin- 
cipalship. These problems should be attacked in a 
spirit of mutual understanding and helpfulness, and this 
is the point of view held throughout this discussion. 
Second, after the faculty's philosophy has been de- 
veloped, the supervisor must have a pretty clear no- 
tion of his problem or problems in working with the in- 
dividual teachers. Third, supervision should include 
personal, private conferences with the teachers. 

The development of a creed or philosophy in co- 
operation with the faculty is important. Without some 
sort of creed an atmosphere favorable to socializing the 
recitation, for example, cannot be generally created. 
Without an accepted philosophy the principal cannot 
inspire confidence in the teachers to try in reality the 
project method in teaching. He cannot reduce his 
supervision to basic principles of conduct in the class- 
room. He becomes a "tool" in the hands of that 
teacher of long experience who has worked under many 
so-called supervisors without criticism — the teacher who 
knows she is right and defies suggestions. 

The point of view arrived at in co-operation with the 



TEACHERS AND TEACHING 231 

faculty should be the working basis in supervision. Its 
application in the classroom, however, becomes an in- 
dividual matter between the principal and the individual 
members of the faculty, but even here the supervisor 
should be true to the principles agreed upon generally 
by the faculty. Only through such a spirit of co-opera- 
tion can unity of teaching effort be maintained. 

The purposes to be served by supervision should be 
rather definitely determined before the work is under- 
taken. This will vary with the school, as things which 
may be serious problems in one school may be very 
simple in another, if, indeed, they are problems at all. 
By all means the principal should make a general sur- 
vey of his teaching staff, and a study of the individual 
teachers. In a general survey the point of view of the 
teachers can be learned, while the study of the individual 
teachers will enable the principal to locate the imme- 
diate points of attack. In some schools it will be dis- 
covered that the teachers have the social point of view 
and the big task is to bring about a refinement of tech- 
nic to make the work effective. In others just the op- 
posite condition may be found. The number of new- 
teachers in the system, especially in this period of war- 
time reconstruction, is a very important point. The 
principal finds he has a big job ahead to bring them into 
line with the general attitude of the more experienced 
and better teachers. If he does not supervise these new 
teachers he may soon find the teaching attitude of the 
whole faculty changed. 

Three very general results that may be secured 
through supervision may be mentioned. These do not 
exhaust the list by any means, but they will serve the 
purpose of showing the importance of setting up a pro- 
gramme of things to be achieved. 



232 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

Supervision should result, first of all, in an open- 
minded attitude toward methods of instruction. With- 
out this attitude the school will rarely be able to make 
much progress in trying out new methods or conducting 
experiments on a large scale. 

Supervision should result in prevention of failure. 
This implies an understanding of the reasons for failure 
and the ability to give assistance of the right kind at 
the proper time. Teachers fail because of (a) lack of 
interest in the work; (b) lack of confidence; (c) lack of 
judgment and sense of relative values; (d) lack of co- 
operation with other teachers and the authorities; (e) 
poor preparation and lack of vision; (/) inability to 
manage pupils; (g) unfortunate personality; and (h) lack 
of technic in actual teaching. Others might be men- 
tioned, but these are generally the reasons underlying 
any recommendation for release. Supervision may be 
of assistance, particularly in a, b, /, and h. It may be 
helpful in c, d, and e. While the principal should have 
satisfied himself on all these points in engaging the 
teacher, points e and g especially should have definitely 
settled the teacher's chances of employment. Failure 
of a teacher once on the staff should be regarded seri- 
ously by the principal. On the other hand, supervision 
should result in locating the unworthy teachers and 
gradually eliminating them from the system. 

Supervision should result in the correction of defi- 
ciencies in experienced teachers who are not beyond 
hope and in the improvement of already efficient in- 
structors. It should result in an improvement on the 
part of such teachers in assignments, in preparation, in 
interest in the work and the pupils, and in the tech^ 
nic of method. 

The personal interview with the teacher is one of the 



TEACHERS AND TEACHING 233 

most important factors in supervision, but it is fraught 
with grave dangers as well as great possibilities. The 
personal interview may easily prove disastrous for the 
teacher and, if continued improperly, also for the prin- 
cipal. Some administrators, effective in teacher-train- 
ing, have had great results attend their personal inter- 
views. The interview should be casual, not forced, and 
should follow reasonably soon after the visit with the 
teacher. If a teacher is interviewed for the purpose of 
increasing her usefulness, that fact means that she has 
done some things commendably well. Starting with the 
good points, it may be pointed out how her effectiveness 
can be increased. The supervisor must shun all ap- 
pearances of littleness in his suggestions and be definite 
in his statements. He must base his remarks on facts 
and not opinion. If the criticism is to be largely ad- 
verse, it will be well for him to wait long and patiently 
until facts in plenty support his contentions. By all 
means teachers should be called in for interviews for the 
purpose of commending them for the excellent things 
they have done, but they should be told explicitly the 
reasons for the commendatory statements. Such inter- 
views will inspire confidence, especially on the part of 
those who have taught successfully for a number of 
years. 

It is in the personal interview that the supervisor 
especially feels the need of definite data upon which to 
base his statements. Generalities merely create differ- 
ences of opinion, and under such circumstances the 
teacher is moved to defend herself even when she knows 
there is justification for criticism. 

To meet this supreme test in supervision the use of 
standard tests, experimental studies, and schemes for 
rating teachers are valuable. It is possible through ex- 



234 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

periment and the use of standard tests to measure the 
results of teaching in sufficiently tangible form to serve 
as a basis for definite discussion on the part of both the 
teacher and supervisor. Some available tests and sug- 
gestions in regard to experimental study are mentioned 
in another chapter. The supervisor should avail him- 
self of every opportunity to supplant mere generalities 
in discussing teacher problems with specific facts. 

The weakness of most rating schemes lies in the fact 
that they are too elaborate, and call largely for opinion 
in estimating the teacher's worth. Some schemes are 
so elaborate that they are absolutely impractical in the 
hands of the supervisor. Much of the information 
called for in such rating plans is not necessary either for 
a better understanding of the teacher's work or for an 
ultimate increase in her efficiency. Why all the ques- 
tions about personal equipment, preparation, neatness, 
and the million little details about the recitation? It 
would require one hundred visits to rate a teacher accu- 
rately, and when the sheets were filled out the inter- 
pretation of the infinitesimally piecemeal result would, 
indeed, require the services of an artist. Matters of 
preparation, experience, success in other schools, per- 
sonal , equipment, community interest, and the like are 
covered at the time the teacher files her application 
and is employed. When these matters have once been 
passed upon and recorded, why bother the supervisor 
longer with them ? 

A rating scheme to be usable and effective must be 
simple and designed to check the teacher on real points 
vital to the technic of method. In any scheme provi- 
sion on the card or sheet should be made for specific 
statements of the reasons for adverse criticism or special 



TEACHERS AND TEACHING 235 

commendation. These statements should be entered 
immediately after the visit. 

The points covered in a rating scheme should include 
such general topics as (a) the assignment, (b) the pres- 
entation of materials, (c) relative amount of teacher vs. 
pupil activity, (d) kind and degree of pupil participa- 
tion, (e) application of classroom materials, (/) physical 
conditions, and (g) peculiarities, strong points and 
weaknesses. Under these general topics there should be 
no more details than absolutely necessary to bring out 
the facts. Peculiarities, strong points and weaknesses 
rather should be written up without trying to formulate 
a set of tentative questions designed to cover all pin- 
point aspects and phases of the teacher's work. Of 
course, in commenting upon such points statements 
ought to be specific. Each teacher should be visited 
sufficiently to enable the supervisor to form a just con- 
clusion on each point in the rating card or sheet. 

Given these general topics, what fundamental points 
should be looked for under each topic? The following 
points are suggestive: 

(a) The assignment. Was the assignment identified with the 

experiences or needs of the pupils? (Project method in 
teaching.) Did the teacher anticipate difficulties and 
suggest means and materials of assistance in completing 
it ? Was the assignment worthy ? 

(b) The presentation of materials. Was the material treated logi- 

cally or psychologically ? 

(c) Relative amount of teacher vs. pupil activity. Without the 

use of the stop-watch, relatively how much of the class 
period is usually consumed by the teacher? How much 
by the pupils ? 

(d) Kind and degree of pupil participation. Was the participa- 

tion active or passive? Did it grow out of real group 



236 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

effort to solve the problems before the class? Did the 
pupils really solve problems before the teacher gave the 
information? How generally did the pupils enter into 
the discussion? Did the teacher direct the situation or 
domineer it ? 

(e) Application of classroom materials. Were specific applica- 
tions made or did the work stop with generalizations? 
Was there a real effort to show the possible connections 
between the work and the pupil's every-day life, or did 
the theory of faculty psychology prevail? 

(/) Physical conditions. A general survey of the room. 

(g) Peculiarities, strong points, and weaknesses. Such general 
points as attitude of pupils (discipline), type of questions 
used, mannerisms, waste of time, and others should be 
noted. 

Some such scheme should also be developed for rating 
the work of teachers in supervised study, since many 
schools are now operating on that basis. Not long ago 
a superintendent remarked that it was not easy to visit 
teachers in a school operating a supervised-study plan, 
since about half of each day was lost so far as super- 
vision was concerned. There is or should be just as 
much technic in handling the study period as the 
recitation. Few supervisors have as yet attempted to 
develop a technic of study with their teachers. 

In this early stage of supervised study it is difficult 
to state just what should be looked for in supervising 
the study period. The topics stated below might well 
be included in a rating sheet or card: 

(a) Provisions for study. Are study materials available? Is 

the equipment adequate ? Are the physical conditions of 
the room satisfactory? Do the pupils have good seats 
and the proper lighting ? 

(b) General atmosphere of room. Is there an atmosphere of 

study? Are the pupils moving about the room without 



TEACHERS AND TEACHING 237 

interfering with others? Is the laboratory atmosphere 
maintained ? 

(c) Pupil activity. Are the pupils gathering material, reading, 

observing, experimenting, and maintaining their pur- 
poses until results are secured? Are the pupils working 
independently or are they depending too much upon the 
teacher ? 

(d) Teacher activity. 

i. General. Is the teacher actively or passively in touch 
with the pupils? Is she interested in the study 
period as a means of developing habits of study? Is 
she experimenting to determine the best methods of 
study in her subjects? 

2. Pupil co-operation. Is the teacher assisting the pupils 

in learning the art of co-operatively attacking their 
problems ? 

3. Individual differences. Has the teacher taken the ability 

of the pupils as the basis of differentiation in the 
amount and kind of work done? Does she make a 
flexible assignment? 

4. Directing study habits. Is the teacher seriously attempt- 

ing to direct the individual pupils in their methods 
of attack upon the assignment ? Is she really making 
an effort to modify the pupils' study habits in her sub- 
ject ? 

In rating teachers there should be perfect frankness 
between them and supervisor. They should know ex- 
actly what the supervisor is looking for when he visits 
them, and they should hold copies of the rating sheet. 
They should also see the ratings given them. Only 
with such frankness between supervisor and supervised 
can one hope for progress in teaching efficiency. 

Supervision of teachers and teaching is one of the 
principal's most potential responsibilities. Through 
constructive work in this field he can determine the 
spirit of the faculty both within and without the class- 
room. The principal who neglects either of these two 



238 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

general phases of supervision is not fulfilling his obliga- 
tion directly to the teachers and pupils under his charge 
and indirectly to the community. Teachers, pupils, 
and patrons are entitled to the highest possible efficiency 
in our present secondary schools. 



INTERNAL ORGANIZATION AND 
GOVERNMENT 

The administration of the American secondary school 
is traditionally autocratic. That man who by sheer 
force of personality has been able to dominate the en- 
tire situation in a school, to discipline unruly boys, to 
impose order and industry upon the pupils and faculty 
alike, has risen to the place of greatest responsibility, 
and has been proclaimed a successful head master, or 
principal. Only within the last two or three decades 
has a new conception of discipline come into existence, 
while even to-day the old conception characterizes the 
administration of a majority of our high schools. 

During the last three decades pioneers have been 
trying to conceive of the discipline and the government 
of the school as an educational opportunity rather than 
merely as a problem of law and order. These admin- 
istrators and theorists think of discipline as a positive 
rather than a negative process. They believe that in 
the corporate life of the school lie rich opportunities for 
moral, ethical, and civic training. Here should be prac- 
tised those habits of initiative, self-control, industry, 
courtesy, morality, and those civic virtues that must 
characterize the well educated. In the school the pupil 
should perform civic duties and responsibilities similar 
to those which he must assume as a citizen of a democ- 
racy. In " Moral Principles in Education/' John Dewey 
has tersely expressed this point of view: 

"Moreover, the society of which the child is to be a 
member is, in the United States, a democratic and pro- 
gressive society. The child must be educated for lead- 

239 



240 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

ership as well as for obedience. He must have power of 
self-direction and power of directing others, power of 
administration, ability to assume positions of responsi- 
bility." 

The advocates of the new theories of school manage- 
ment and control are keenly conscious of the ends to be 
achieved and of the problem. They are developing suc- 
cessful methods through experimentation. 

Those who cling to the old ways are generally not 
conscious of the philosophy underlying their practices, 
but the old and the new methods may be clearly differ- 
entiated. Doctor Johnston has, in his "Party Platforms 
in Education," in a whimsical yet clear-cut passage 
stated the underlying philosophies of the two methods. 
One or two sentences will bear repetition at this point. 
Doctor Johnston has the " absolutists" say: 

"They [the pupils] must lean upon the teacher's will. 
We believe that the school should not suffer the wast- 
age otherwise due to this inevitable floundering of young 
pupils incident to all their attempts to acquire a code of 
self-discipline with self-direction. 

"The school is primarily a disciplining institution — 
in morals as in intellect — and not a place for individ- 
uals to go through the farce of ' practising their indi- 
vidualities.' Pupils need rather above everything else 
to practise unpleasant effort, to cultivate the capacity 
to endure drudgery, to become reconciled to 'hard, un- 
coaxed, uncomplimented work.' " 

And the "experimentalists": 

"We believe that the characteristic, direct and more 
or less literal, school emphasis upon repressive disci- 
pline, external direction of will, and submissive obedi- 
ence to 'teacher's orders' or to traditional conceptions 
of an education superimposed upon children's natures 



ORGANIZATION AND GOVERNMENT 241 

should be largely but gradually replaced by a different 
sort of emphasis. This new emphasis should be upon 
the constructive rather than upon the destructive policy 
of making educational use of all school exercises of class- 
room and of playground — every incident of school life — 
that they may present a ' working contact ' with the 
average affairs of every-day life. 

"From the point, then, of school discipline the school 
is primarily an institution for reproducing the forces and 
environment of typical communities and for gradually 
developing in accord with this controlled social school 
atmosphere the ' working structures' of individualities 
found in the pupils. The public-school pupil comes 
not primarily to learn but to practise virtue, not to be 
' overlaid' with a moral veneer, however solidly, but to 
evolve, through the modern school's reproduction of 
life's very acts of choice and of self-control in various 
intercourse with his fellows, that fundamental con- 
sciousness of active workable Tightness which we call 
character." 

Snedden has set the problem concisely and at the 
same time described the two points of view. 

"....« The world once knew exactly how to give 
moral education, but that was before the days when 
we talked about democracy or encouraged the rank and 
file of people to think for themselves, when discipline, 
authority, dogma, and other forms of bodily and spiri- 
tual coercion prevailed — as they prevail in Germany — 
it was easy to produce a submissive, docile, obedient 
people, a people composed of individuals too well 
1 broken' to break a law or do an immoral act, if they 
thought anybody was looking. 

"In a democracy we have the far more difficult and 
worthy task of making a people at once law-abiding 



242 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

and self-governing, wholesome in moral life and yet 
capable of free thinking, respecting all that is good in 
society and yet slaves of no authority. Truly we are 
still in the early exploration stages of this great new work" 1 

In the School Review for March, 1918, Miss Olivia 
Pound reports on an investigation of pupil activities in 
seventy-five representative high schools. Touching the 
point under discussion, Miss Pound says : 

"There is a wide difference in opinion among school 
authorities in regard to the advisability of student par- 
ticipation in the management of the school. Twenty- 
three administrators seemed to have no definite opinion 
on the subject. Others seemed to confuse the project 
with student self-government, or were opposed to it 
altogether, as the following comments will show: 'Stu- 
dents should study and recite, teachers should teach and 
supervise'; 'Students should not have a direct voice in 
governing their fellow students'; ' First and second 
year students are incapable of self-government, and 
Juniors are little better. I think Seniors need to be 
backed up by a pretty definite set of restrictions'; 
1 There should be no student participation in the gov- 
ernment of the school. A school must be a benevolent 
despotism 7 ; ' There should be no student participation 
absolutely, except as school spirit and respect for proper 
authority may assist.' 

"On the other hand, many schoolmen are enthusiastic 
over the possibilities arising from student participation 
in the management of the school. The following quo- 
tations will give the views of some of them: 'It is ideal 
in my opinion'; 'They should participate just so far as 
they will go. If they succeed they have other things 

1 " Character Education, Educational Administration and Super- 
vision,'' June, 1918. 



ORGANIZATION AND GOVERNMENT 243 

added unto them'; 'They should participate to a con- 
siderable extent. To be trusted is to be saved. Chil- 
dren should get in the habit of taking responsibility'; 
'They should be allowed as much freedom as tends to 
develop respect for law and order, with a large spirit of 
co-operation with the faculty'; 'Student participation 
is valuable toward bringing the pupil's mind to a realiza- 
tion of what education and its implements mean for 
good citizenship.'" 

Principals who think the sole functions of pupils and 
teacher may be expressed in the doctrine, "Students 
should study and recite, teachers should teach and 
supervise," or, "A school must be a benevolent des- 
potism," are probably not conscious of the implications 
of their beliefs. In all probability it has never occurred 
to them that school government on this basis would 
differ from the ideals of democracy as the night from 
the day. On casual inspection schools under their di- 
rection might seem progressive. There would prob- 
ably be found numerous pupil "activities" and a large 
amount of freedom. A close investigation would show 
that these activities were faculty-directed, while the 
actual government of the school was autocratic. When 
this dictum holds, the pupils will not "get in the habit 
of taking responsibility"; they can never be brought to 
a full "realization of what education and its implements 
mean for good citizenship." 

In this book it is assumed that the school must be, 
like the state of which it is a part, a democracy, and 
this chapter is based on the theory that a democratic 
organization of both the faculty and the pupil body of 
the high school will provide the best opportunities for 
the moral training of its youth, will result in better dis- 
cipline throughout the school, better courses of study 



244 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

and methods of teaching; in short, in a more efficient 
school from every standpoint. 

In the last three decades many attempts have been 
made at pupil government. These attempts have re- 
sulted in a monotonous series of failures which have 
been due primarily to a fundamental misconception of 
the function and the purpose of democracy in school 
government. It is impossible to turn the government 
of the school over entirely to the pupils for just the 
same reason that it would be impossible to turn the gov- 
ernment of the United States over to young men and 
women of the country who are under twenty years of 
age. These young men and young women are not yet 
ready for self-government. They need to be practised 
in the art before they are given the largest responsibili- 
ties. So in the school. A second reason for these fail- 
ures has been that pupil self-government was attempted 
in schools in which the government of the faculty was 
autocratic. There can be no hope of successful demo- 
cratic organization of the pupils unless the entire organ- 
ization of the school, from the top down, is democratic. 
The first consideration, then, is the faculty. 

In the final analysis the success or failure of any sec- 
ondary school must rest upon the principal. The prin- 
cipal is held accountable for the policy of the institution 
under his direction. This explains, in part, his ten- 
dency to autocracy. It also makes obvious the funda- 
mental importance of the relation of the principal to the 
faculty and to the pupils. 

The principal must not be too much limited by legis- 
lation, or so surrounded by committees and organiza- 
tions co-ordinate in authority that he will become pow- 
erless. Large powers must be reposed in this office, 
but the principal is not weakened if there are regularly 



ORGANIZATION AND GOVERNMENT 245 

constituted and official channels by which the faculty 
can contribute to the determination of policies. 

Nearly every college and university has some organ- 
ization that provides, nominally at least, official chan- 
nels for faculty contributions to the administrative 
policy of the school. In most instances such organiza- 
tions are rudimentary, consisting often of only a few 
standing committees appointed annually by the presi- 
dent, and in most instances the democracy is more 
apparent than real, actual authority being vested in 
deans and directors rather than in flexible committees, 
or in senates and councils; while in a few institutions 
there are officially adopted constitutions, representing 
the best thought of the instructional staff, and vesting 
in the faculty large legislative and advisory powers. 
There is at present a well-denned movement, coming 
largely from the faculties themselves, toward greater 
democracy in university administration. Already some 
constitutions have been adopted or proposed that will 
prove to be real contributions to the theory and prac- 
tice of educational administration. In high schools, on 
the other hand, even standing committees are practi- 
cally unknown, while no high school has ever reported 
a constitution, written or unwritten. 

There is no reason for less democracy in the high 
school than in colleges. The bachelor's degree is now 
the sine qua non for employment in accredited schools; 
masters' degrees are very common, while even doctors' 
degrees are becoming numerous in the larger institu- 
tions. The best high school faculties are superior in 
training to the best college faculties of three decades 
ago, and to the faculties of many small colleges of to- 
day. To the high school teacher is left most of the 
actual administration of the school. It is a short- 



246 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

sighted policy that does not make opportunity for the 
teacher to participate in the legislation which he must 
carry out. High school teachers are, with few excep- 
tions, intensely interested in the professional as con- 
trasted with the scholastic problems of their work. Pro- 
fessional training is now demanded of most beginning 
teachers either by law or by the regulations or policies 
of boards of education. 

The faculty should participate in determining the 
policy of the school. If this participation is to be real 
and effective, there must be officially constituted chan- 
nels for the expression of faculty opinion. Democracy 
that is not organized is not democracy. Many princi- 
pals believe they are giving the teachers a large share in 
the direction of the school when they frequently call 
experienced members of the force into the office for con- 
ferences about particular problems, and when they act 
on the advice they receive on such occasions, or when 
they assign to the most capable and experienced heavy 
administrative responsibilities. But this policy fails in 
reality in bringing to bear upon school problems the 
best thought and experience of all members of the staff. 
This end can be attained only through some organiza- 
tion which will make suggestions so easy and natural 
that teachers will not feel that they are exceeding their 
prerogatives when they point out defects of adminis- 
tration or criticise policies. 

It is not difficult to define the limits of faculty prerog- 
atives in the matter of legislation and administration. 
All matters which directly concern internal adminis- 
tration are legitimate subjects for faculty considera- 
tion. Under this head would be included all the reg- 
ulations and rules of procedure relative to the purely 
internal government of the school. Under this head 



ORGANIZATION AND GOVERNMENT 247 

would also come the development of courses of instruc- 
tion in the various departments, the organization of 
these courses of instruction into curriculums, and the 
making of rules regarding pupil choices of curriculums 
and courses and the requirements for graduation. Other 
legitimate subjects for faculty legislation are the award- 
ing of scholastic honors, the management of inter- 
scholastic pupil activities, both literary and athletic, the 
management and supervision of pupil societies, methods 
of educational and vocational guidance, the adminis- 
tration of home rooms, including discipline, record of 
attendance, and the numerous other duties connected 
therewith. Of course faculty legislation is subject al- 
ways to the veto of the principal or of the other regu- 
larly constituted school authorities. 

The faculty would not be concerned as a legislative 
body with the employment of teachers, the fixing of sal- 
aries, the introduction of new subjects of study, the 
erection of buildings, or in determining the general pol- 
icy of the school system of which the faculty is but a 
part. These larger policies must be determined by the 
board of education and the superintendent of schools. 
However, it is sound policy for the superintendent and 
the board to seek systematically the advice and co- 
operation of all principals, supervisors, and teachers in 
the development of school policies. An examination of 
the practices in American city school systems will show 
those systems to be most progressive and efficient that 
secure the maximum co-operation and initiative from 
the teachers. 

Participation in the determination of school policies 
is vital to the professional growth and development of 
the individual. The teacher who is compelled merely 
to carry out the thoughts and plans of others year in 



248 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

and year out, and who must always fight for the right 
to express in her work her own individuality and thought 
must inevitably become mechanical in her teaching and, 
eventually, so crystallized in her methods as to make 
the reception of new ideas next to impossible. There 
are to-day altogether too many such teachers in Amer- 
ican high schools. Every progressive administration 
finds such teachers the greatest obstacle in the way of 
new ideas and methods. These tragedies can be avoided 
only by a faculty organization that will stimulate the 
maximum of professional thought and initiative on the 
part of the individual teacher. 

Teachers should always be trained in service. Con- 
ditions make this imperative at this time in our high 
schools. While some professional training is now re- 
quired for admission to most high school faculties, the 
facilities for the technical training of American secon- 
dary teachers are, as yet, wholly inadequate. Partici- 
pation in the determination of policies, in the admin- 
istration of the school, in the development of courses of 
study, of curriculums, and of methods is the natural 
starting-place for all professional study and growth. If 
the administration does not encourage such participa- 
tion it will be the rare and exceptional teacher who does 
not atrophy. Where participation is required and inde- 
pendence encouraged every teacher should maintain 
through a long period of service and into old age an 
open mind and a capacity for growth. 

The particular form of faculty participation is not 
important so long as there is the reality. It is impossi- 
ble to have real participation from all members of the 
faculty, inexperienced as well as experienced, without 
some regularly organized channels. It is not unthink- 
able that there should be in large high schools, just 



ORGANIZATION AND GOVERNMENT 249 

as in some large universities, constitutions giving the 
faculties their specific rights and responsibilities. It 
is fundamental, however, that the machinery of the 
school should not crystallize and eventually defeat the 
ends for which it was created, and this is always a very 
present danger. Flexible committee systems embrac- 
ing all the teachers will serve every purpose and will 
not invite this danger. a The spirit maketh alive, the 
letter killeth." 

In one large Middle West high school the principal 
appoints annually the following standing faculty com- 
mittees: Organization, Standards of Scholarship, Stu- 
dent Affairs, Professional Study, Assemblies, Credit 
Adjustments, Curriculum Adjustments (Heads of De- 
partments). The following are a few of the special 
committees that were appointed in this high school in a 
period of two years: Curriculums (two committees — one 
on curriculum organization and one on studies to be 
required of all pupils), War Work, Farm Work (co- 
operative with United States Boys' Working Reserve), 
Scholastic Honors, Commencement Activities. Each of 
these special committees was promptly discharged after 
having faithfully performed its duty. In this school 
the heads of departments conduct department business 
on the same principles. 

Where there is a co-operative organization of the 
faculty, pupil participation in the government of the 
school can be made a reality. This means that the cor- 
porate life of the institution can be used for the civic 
and moral training of the boys and girls. 

The American high school has been characterized in 
the last three decades by an amount of pupil "freedom" 
unknown in any other secondary school, with the pos- 
sible exception of certain great English schools. Pupil 



250 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

activities of all kinds, athletics, amateur dramatics, lit- 
erary and debating societies, departmental clubs, social 
clubs, have given great charm to high school life. Some- 
times this freedom has degenerated into anarchy or has 
resulted in antisocial or snobbish clubs and societies 
such as high school secret societies. In a few instances 
disastrous experiments have been made with pupil self- 
government. In contrast with the austere and auto- 
cratic government of the German secondary schools, a 
government designed to crush initiative and indepen- 
dence and make loyal and obedient subjects for an 
autocratic state, this freedom in American high schools 
has offered real opportunities for the development and 
expression of individuality. But, with few exceptions, 
the possibilities have not been realized. Our freedom is 
too frequently only a veneer for what is in reality an 
autocratic government rather than the expression of a 
genuine democratic spirit in the life of the school. 

The German secondary school is well designed for its 
purpose of creating submissive German subjects. Pupil 
initiative and responsibility, independent social think- 
ing, are no more wanted there than in the German 
state. Conformity is the all-important thing. First of 
all, there must be obedience in the state. Obedience, 
therefore, is the first lesson taught in the German school. 

Just the opposite method must be employed in train- 
ing boys and girls for citizenship in a democracy. There 
must be respect and obedience to law, but thinking 
obedience. Independence and initiative must be en- 
couraged, the social mind must be cultivated. The 
habit of participation in civic affairs must be formed. 
A prejudice in favor of the common good and a willing- 
ness always to place the common good above selfish 
ends, even at great personal sacrifice, must be instilled 



ORGANIZATION AND GOVERNMENT 251 

in every individual. The ideals of co-operation, fair 
play, respect for the rights of others, and the habit of 
judging individuals only by their true worth are funda- 
mental to the success of American democracy and can 
be fully developed only by the public schools. 

There are outstanding examples of high schools in 
which the pupil government organizations have with 
marked success largely taken over the actual govern- 
ment of the school. Students of this problem should 
investigate the methods employed in such schools as 
the William Perm of Philadelphia, the Manual Arts of 
Los Angeles, the Washington Irving of New York, the 
Decatur, Springfield, and New Trier Township High 
Schools in Illinois, and others. In another chapter a 
detailed description is given of the pupil participation 
plan in operation in one school. 

An excellent expression of the spirit and aim that 
should characterize pupil participation is found in the 
following quotation from an editorial from a paper pub- 
lished in a high school where there was an active and 
effective organization for pupil participation in school 
control. 

"There is a strong similarity between the governing 
methods inside the school and those of the outside 
world. The school is a little state, a little democracy 
all by itself. There is the same opportunity for corrupt 
politics, the same chance for graft and pork-barrel 
legislation, that there is in the governing circles of the 
nation. 

"Thus the student should be just as particular in his 
selection of members for the school councils as he in- 
tends to be in casting his vote for representatives for 
Congress later on. The school is to be congratulated 
upon the personnel of the councils this year. It seems 



252 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

that the students have been guided by the proper idea 
in their choice of representatives. 

" As the citizenship of a democracy has a great respon- 
sibility in the electing of its representatives; so the rep- 
resentative has his responsibilities. The member of the 
student council must be just as particular as regards 
the kind and quality of the business transacted in that 
body. 

"Upon the student's attitude toward the school gov- 
ernment now will be built his attitude toward the State 
and nation later on. Keep in mind, student, that the 
school is a little republic; that the councils are the legis- 
lative bodies; that the principal is the president. Treat 
the laws of the school with the same respect with which 
you treat the laws of your state. If you do this, we 
predict that you will be to your nation the kind of a 
citizen that it needs: the citizen that votes for the best 
man regardless of his party; the citizen that respects 
the law, not because of the force behind it, but because 
he realizes that obedience to the law is necessary for the 
welfare of the whole community. Then you will be the 
kind of citizen needed to keep this country in its posi- 
tion as a model to all other nations." 

The editor of this paper and the author of this edi- 
torial was himself a member of the " student council." 
Participation in its work was probably the finest experi- 
ence in his high school life. Who could state more 
clearly the ideals of American citizenship ? 

Again the spirit and not the form of pupil participa- 
tion is the vital thing. There may or may not be con- 
stitutions. It is essential that the school be regarded 
as a community and the faculty and pupils as citizens 
of it, that the responsibility of governing this com- 
munity fall on teachers and pupils alike, and that the 



ORGANIZATION AND GOVERNMENT 253 

pupils exercise the functions of government through 
their regularly elected representatives. The practice of 
the boys and girls in the art of self-control must always 
be under advice and control of the faculty, but it must 
be real, and always the hardest thing for teachers to 
learn will be to keep far enough in the background. 

At first the attempts must be more or less crude on 
the part of both faculty and pupils, for democracy in 
school government is a new adventure. There will 
doubtless be many failures. It will take many years, 
perhaps decades to develop a satisfactory technic. 
Eventually the home and the church must become 
deeply involved. Indeed, the principles underlying this 
theory of moral and civic training are so fundamental 
and the problem is so vast that the school alone will 
not suffice for their complete realization. " Truly we are 
still in the early exploration stage of this great new work." 

Any high school administration that neglects even the 
smallest opportunities to throw responsibility on the 
pupils is recreant to its civic duty. 



A CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL PROGRAMME 

The adolescent boy and girl are by instinct social 
beings. From earliest childhood it is instinctive in the 
child to crave companionship. In these earlier years 
friendships are easily made and just as easily broken. 
Comradeship and infatuation are fleeting, indeed. 
Within the brief space of a day's time two children may 
be on friendly and unfriendly terms in succession many 
times. 

As the dawn of adolescence approaches the friend- 
ships formed are more lasting and the response to the 
instinctive call for social intercourse becomes more abid- 
ing. Adolescent children form friendships often lasting 
over a period of time. During this period the child by 
instinct seeks for and creates social situations in which 
he can become an active participant. With the com- 
ing of this period the child feels less dependent upon his 
parents for guidance and there is an outcropping of 
independence and freedom from the home in the grati- 
fication of the social instincts. 

Boys and girls of high school age have reached that 
stage of development in which they actively create 
social situations in which they can participate more or 
less independently of direction from an external source. 
Not that they are not amenable to suggestions from the 
home or the school, but they are intensely and mostly 
interested in the social activities which are a natural 
expression of their desires or which they have had some 
share in initiating. 

This tendency in the adolescent boy and girl can 
be utilized and directed. It is possible for the home 

254 



A CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL PROGRAMME 255 

and the school, through suggestions of the right sort, 
to guide and direct these social proclivities into the 
right channel, but it is an impossible task to abolish 
social activities from the lives of high school boys and 
girls. These activities are the natural expression of 
human nature. It is by no accident that the social 
affairs of high school boys and girls have become an 
important matter, nor that Forbush, in describing high 
school problems, could say: "A visitor to the assembly 
room of a city high school will often find the black- 
boards crowded with colored drawings, executed with 
ingenuity and some artistic skill, advertising a dozen 
different student organizations. These 'side shows' to 
the main ' circus ' have become a very important part 
of modern public-school life. They are manifestations 
of varied instincts which are not satisfied in the school 
curriculum, and furnish opportunities for expression of 
talent for which the school work itself is insufficient. 
Their significance in education is, therefore, great, and 
progressive high school teachers are regarding them as 
an addition to their own opportunities." 

As has been suggested, it is possible to direct the 
social life of high school pupils. The form of direction 
must be that of sympathetic guidance and suggestion, 
keeping in mind the outcropping of instinctive tenden- 
cies. It is during this period that the instinct of clan- 
nishness or the gang spirit reaches its strongest devel- 
opment, particularly among boys. At this period mighty 
bonds tie boys to the gang or the secret club or frater- 
nity. The pull of this form of social organization is a 
strong force with the high school boy. He will swear 
an allegiance to his gang or club that transcends in his 
estimation the importance of his obligations to all other 
institutions, This is not an exaggerated statement. 



256 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

Boys have declared solemnly that their oath of alle- 
giance to secret organizations were the most sacred 
things in their lives. They have been known to state 
honestly that they regarded their obligations to such 
organizations as more fundamentally important than 
their obligations to the school, the church, or the home. 
Furthermore, the number of instances in which high 
school boys have betrayed the secrets of their frater- 
nities or girls of their high school sororities have been 
very few indeed. In fact, it is doubtful whether any 
adult has ever been fully informed upon these things. 
This unalterable allegiance is even more abiding with 
the high school boy than it is with the adult. 

With these tendencies naturally a part of the very 
life of the high school boy and girl, not only is it funda- 
mentally correct to state that their social proclivities 
must be directed in so far as possible into worthy chan- 
nels, but their social life under this direction must be 
real and natural. School authorities must seek for the 
development of situations in the social organization of 
the school that make a natural appeal to the boy and 
girl and secure their active interest. The school in its 
organization of social activities must meet these social 
tendencies and set up a type of social life that parallels 
the expression of the instinctive tendencies. 

The history of the social organization of the tradi- 
tional high school is replete with examples of what 
happens when the social life has been left to develop in 
a haphazard, undirected manner. It is well within the 
truth to state that high school secret societies, clannish 
and exclusive clubs, and the practices growing out of 
the formation of these organizations, are the natural re- 
sult of lack of direction. We have in too many in- 
stances considered social activities not only an unnec- 



A CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL PROGRAMME 257 

essary but a harmful adjunct to the school. In fact, 
we have sometimes gone so far as to say openly that 
we should discourage social activities on the fallacious 
ground that with the advent of these things the stand- 
ard of scholarship declines. We have indeed been 
very short-sighted in our inability to utilize social in- 
stincts as the means of developing a programme of 
natural and purposeful social activities that will help 
raise the standard of scholarship and conduct. This 
general lack of appreciation of the fundamental im- 
portance of the social problem in the organization and 
administration of the modern secondary school has been 
a very formidable factor in the development of that 
type of high school society typified by the fraternity. 

The history of the development of the social life in 
one large high school during such a period of haphazard 
guidance is typical, and for that reason may be used as 
an example of the results attendant upon the neglect of 
this whole problem. 

This particular high school is cosmopolitan in its 
organization. There has been nothing of the extraordi- 
nary in its growth and development. It developed in 
much the same way that other traditional high schools 
have developed during the past two or three decades. 
As the student body increased in numbers the social 
activities of the pupils began to come to the front. As 
in other schools of its kind, the social proclivities of the 
boys and girls found expression in some form or another. 
As was generally the policy in those early days, those 
in charge of the institution either took little interest in 
the affairs of the boys and girls outside of the class- 
rooms or actively sought to suppress as many of them 
as was humanly possible. 

Somewhat later in the development of the school the 



258 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

traditional scientific, debating, and literary societies 
were organized and fostered by the faculty as a means 
of furnishing an outlet for the abundant spirit of the 
adolescent boy and girl. The meetings of these organ- 
izations were serious, and it can truthfully be said that 
they fulfilled the purposes of those early attempts to 
organize and direct social activities. It may even be 
said that their meetings fulfilled some of the worthy 
purposes of secondary education. 

As these clubs were operating and reaching the ze- 
nith of their influence, other clubs and organizations were 
developing innocently and taking a definite place in the 
lives of the boys and girls. In most instances these 
clubs or organizations grew out of associations entirely 
apart from the school. One source of these new inde- 
pendent organizations was the Sunday-school class or 
club. In the beginning the social activities incident 
to the Sunday-school organization were the reason for 
their formation. They were to strengthen and help 
^build up a higher interest in the work of the Sun- 
day-school. In other instances neighborhood clubs 
were formed among the children of families having 
common interests. It was natural that their children 
should be drawn together. There were other circum- 
stances out of which this type of club grew, but these 
two examples are sufficient to give a setting for the 
development of independent clubs and societies which 
came to involve a considerable number of pupils. 

Already certain suppressed facts in connection with 
the apparent innocent beginning of these organizations 
are evident. First, the school authorities were slow to 
capitalize purely social activities for educational ends. 
Second, they were unable to see the far-reaching effects 
of these organizations springing up in the community 



A CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL PROGRAMME 259 

quite independent of the school. Third, these inde- 
pendent clubs and societies were, in the beginning, 
entirely worthy of the time and effort spent in organiz- 
ing them and in conducting their affairs. 

For a period of years the faculty, through steadfast 
maintenance of their methods of dominating the poli- 
cies of the debating, scientific, and literary societies, 
had kept these organizations in line with their tradi- 
tional ideas. On the other hand, the independent 
organizations in the community, lacking the guidance of 
those trained in the psychology of adolescence, quickly 
came to exist purely for social purposes. The members 
divorced their activities from the control and influence 
of the Sunday-school and even of the parents. This 
was a very natural step, as is evidenced by the fact that 
it has been duplicated in hundreds of independent cases 
throughout the United States. The members secured 
pins, developed a sort of secret code, and adopted some 
type of symbolic language, word, or act. It is no mere 
coincidence that these organizations in this particular 
school found their counterpart in other cities, and that 
out of these common expressions of social instincts there 
developed national high school fraternities and sorori- 
ties. This development is the outcropping of the in- 
stinctive tendencies of the adolescent boy and girl when 
left to their own devices. 

Almost before the authorities had taken cognizance of 
these independent organizations they had become se- 
cretly a part and parcel of the social organization of the 
school. They brought into the school not only their 
outward emblems of secret-society connections, but 
also the spirit of clannishness and undemocratic ideals. 
The members went together, sat together, ate together, 
and worked together within the school in order that 



260 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

they might further the interests of the organizations to 
which they belonged. Quite naturally the debating, 
scientific, and literary clubs sponsored by the teachers 
reacted in one of two ways to this new spirit. They 
either adopted the ways of the secret societies and went 
as far as they dared in imitating their methods and 
spirit, or the members lost interest and their clubs 
passed out of existence. 

With this important situation confronting the faculty 
no guiding hand was forthcoming to combat the evil 
tendencies set up. The members of the secret societies 
began to wear their pins openly, which in some instances 
had been purchased at a cost of sixty dollars and even 
more. Dinner dances, theatre and automobile parties, 
smokers, and annual banquets occupied the time of 
members and ran up the cost of being one of the school's 
"four hundred" to overwhelming figures. Their organ- 
izations were maintained solely for social ends. The 
members looked with considerable condescension upon 
the plebeian activities of the rank and file of the student 
body. Such participation in the school's activities as 
they indulged in — class elections, athletics, school par- 
ties, and other activities — was more for the purpose of 
putting forward and advancing the interest of the fra- 
ternity than due to their real interest in the work of the 
school. In class elections and in athletics their tactics 
often bordered upon the political chicanery too fre- 
quently encountered in adult life. In one instance a 
worthy boy was, through the political manipulations of 
the secret societies, defeated for a very important office. 
In another instance one fraternity sought for and finally 
secured practically absolute control of the athletic situ- 
ation. One year not a single non-fraternity boy made 
a place on the interscholastic football team, although 



A CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL PROGRAMME 261 

there were six times as many non-fraternity as fraternity 
boys enrolled. 

This state of affairs is not to be wondered at when 
one considers the code of ethics under which such 
organizations have been known to operate. As a part 
of one code, for example, the boy who is a member of a 
fraternity in good standing automatically becomes a 
non-member when the principal or other person in 
authority asks this question: "Are you a member of a 
secret society or fraternity?" He honestly (?) an- 
swers "no" to this question. Immediately upon an- 
swering "no," according to the code of ethics, he is 
automatically reinstated in good standing. 

Under this regime, as has been suggested, many of 
the orthodox clubs of the school died from lack of in- 
terest. They had become too common, too plebeian, 
too trivial. The school had taken on a new air. The 
pupils felt that they must either belong to a more 
socially elect group or indulge in no activities whatever. 
Other of these clubs adopted in spirit the methods of 
secret societies. For example, they selected or "spiked " 
pupils upon the unsustainable bases of wealth, family 
connections, social standing, automobile, and section of 
the city in which the pupils lived. In one instance a 
girl was proposed for membership in one of these organ- 
izations because her father had built a new home with 
a ballroom on the third floor. In another instance a 
very worthy girl was " blackballed' ' by her fellow pupils 
because she did not dress sufficiently well to suit their 
tastes. In still another instance the girls had an un- 
derstanding among themselves not to ask to any func- 
tion, dance, dinner, or party any boy who did not drive 
an automobile. 

Naturally there developed out of this state of affairs 



262 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

an unsustainable social life. At the beginning of each 
new semester a mad rushing or spiking season was con- 
ducted by all of the secret societies and exclusive boys' 
and girls' clubs. It was indeed a hilarious period for 
those who were lucky enough to be chosen for member- 
ship. They were banqueted at the principal hotels of 
the city, given automobile rides and theatre parties. 
But those worthy boys and girls who for some trivial 
reason were not selected were deeply touched and visi- 
bly affected. In many instances they withdrew from 
the school. In every case they were hurt by the condi- 
tion of affairs which permitted fellow pupils to sit in 
sole judgment upon them and say publicly that they 
were unfit to hold membership in certain organizations. 
Snobbishness and exclusiveness ran riot. All clubs and 
societies of the school came to be regarded as a means 
by which the pupils could indulge in purely social activi- 
ties. The school was composed of cliques and groups, 
and it was impossible to unify generally the student 
body. School spirit was at a low ebb because the first 
allegiance of too many pupils was to some club or secret 
society. 

This social condition had a marked effect upon dis- 
cipline, attendance, tardiness, and, as would be expected, 
upon scholarship. There was an enormous amount of 
tardiness and absence on the part of those who were 
free to attend school regularly. School obligations 
rested very lightly upon the pupils. Classes were at- 
tended or skipped almost at will, and it became a 
common expression among citizens of the community 
that one could tell where the high school building was 
located when he came within five or six blocks of it by 
the number of pupils who were standing on street cor- 
ners or otherwise idling away their time. 



A CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL PROGRAMME 263 

The statistics given below are true of the conditions 
that prevailed in the school during the height of the 
secret-society regime. The records of all of the secret- 
society members and of an equal number of non-secret- 
society members were studied. The non-secret-society 
group was made up by taking the name of the first boy 
on the school register, which was written alphabetically, 
and every fifth boy thereafter, unless such fifth boy was 
a secret-society member. In this case the next non- 
secret-society boy in the list was taken. The statistics 
are true of one school year. 

The secret-society members were tardy 802 times 

While the non-members were tardy only 412 times 

The secret-society members were absent 1,386 times 

While the non-members were absent only ■. . . 1,085 times 

The secret-society members failed of passing in. . . 102 studies 

While the non-members failed of passing in 48 studies 

The secret-society members made a mark of 90 per 

cent or more in only 96 studies 

While the non-members made a mark of 90 per 

cent or more in 152 studies 

In this connection the scholarship records made by 
those of these same pupils who remained in school one 
year after the social life of the school had been reorgan- 
ized on a democratic basis are interesting. 

The former secret-society members made marks of 
90 per cent or more in 32 per cent of their studies as 
against 19 per cent the previous year. The non-mem- 
ber group made marks of 90 per cent or more in 45 per 
cent of their studies as against 29 per cen" the previous 
year. 

The history of the development and intrenchment in 
the school of this unnatural social life has been dupli- 



264 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

cated in many schools. It shows very clearly the re- 
sults attendant upon the general lack of appreciation 
of the social problems of high school boys and girls. It 
also reveals the need of directing their social tendencies 
into worthy channels. 

The surest guarantee against such conditions is the 
organization of the social life of the school, first, in 
keeping with the instinctive social tendencies of the 
high school age, and, second, in conformity with the 
fundamental principles of a democratic society. Need- 
less to say, it is much easier to organize and develop 
such a social programme before the school has become 
pervaded with the snobbish spirit of the fraternity and 
the sorority than it is after such evil tendencies have 
developed. In fact, after secret societies have become 
well established, it is well-nigh impossible to succeed in 
reorganizing the school through a constructive policy 
alone. Repression becomes a necessity, but a repres- 
sive policy must be accompanied by a constructive one. 
A constructive social programme is the best means 
within the reach of school authorities to combat evil 
tendencies and misdirected social activities, although, 
as has just been said, it may have to be supported for a 
time by a policy of suppression. 

A constructive social programme designed to organ- 
ize and direct the social life of high school boys and 
girls for educational and citizenship ends becomes a 
profound obligation. If we are to train boys and girls 
for participation in the civic, moral, and social respon- 
sibilities of democratic citizenship, we must provide the 
means by which the pupil may begin the practice of this 
citizenship in its best sense while he is yet in the high 
school. So many boys and girls do not complete the 
work of the high school that it is doubly important that 



A CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL PROGRAMME 265 

those who remain be thoroughly grounded in the respon- 
sibilities of citizenship and also in the sterling qualities 
of leadership. The characteristics, therefore, of a pur- 
poseful programme of social activities should be in 
keeping with the principles of democracy. True democ- 
racy seeks for the highest development possible of the 
individual, but at the same time it demands that the 
individual shall use his talents for the betterment of 
his fellow men. It presupposes both leadership and fol- 
lowership. It opens up the avenue of opportunity to 
all persons alike, the individual being limited in his 
advancement to circumstances quite apart from the 
theoretical organization of our society. In this sense 
democracy is not a leveller of persons or talents. De- 
mocracy makes room for people of varying degrees of 
ability. 

In a democracy, therefore, we find some people more 
fitted to be leaders than others, some more intelligent 
than others, and some more refined than others. They 
differ in their point of view, in their attitude toward 
social, civic, and moral obligations, in their home life, 
and in other ways. While some may accept the narrow 
view of social democracy advocated by extremists, it is 
an impossible task to reduce all individuals to the same 
general level. 

On the other hand, those who, because of natural 
endowments, family connections, wealth, refined man- 
ners, or for other reasons, seek to develop for them- 
selves a caste or class group are wrong. The caste sys- 
tem in America ought to be an impossible thing. Re- 
gardless of the position one occupies, he should use his 
power and influence for the betterment of society as a 
whole and not alone for selfish ends. With such a 
theory underlying our social structure, people of wealth, 



266 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

of refinement, of social standing, or those occupying 
positions of leadership, should conduct themselves in 
such manner that by virtue of their associations with 
others they may become the means of inspiration and 
of growth rather than objects of suspicion and even 
hatred. 

Returning for the moment to the secret society in the 
high school, it is fundamentally vicious in its tenden- 
cies because it creates within the mind of the adolescent 
boy and girl a kind of caste idea which is positively 
harmful to both those within and without these organ- 
izations. It forces mere boys and girls into maturity 
long before they have attained the perspective and bal- 
ance of adults. 

A constructive social programme, therefore, is that 
programme which is designed to utilize the social activi- 
ties of boys and girls coming from all types of homes in 
such manner that all will accept the point of view that 
merit alone should count in the advancement of the 
individual. Such a programme of social activities must 
be built upon certain fundamental principles in keeping 
with this conception. 

First, the principle of active student participation 
must be dominant. The boys and girls must be given 
some opportunity to participate actively in the deter- 
mination of policies and activities growing out of the 
social life of the school. The best training for the 
activities of a democratic life can be instilled in the 
boy and girl through practice. In general, a demo- 
cratic social programme is impossible unless the active 
participation of the pupils becomes a dominant part of 
that programme. 

Second, a constructive social programme must be 
built upon the principle of worthy activities. It is en- 



A CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL PROGRAMME 267 

tirely possible to substitute acceptable activities for 
questionable ones if they are organized in keeping with 
the interests of the boys and girls. Worthy activities 
are those organized and administered in such a way as 
to meet one or more of the purposeful ends of secondary 
education. They are worthy if they support or moti- 
vate the work of the classroom. 

Third, the distinctly social life under a constructive 
programme will be made incident to the worthy activi- 
ties of purposeful clubs or societies. 

Fourth, a constructive social programme will be a 
varied and comprehensive one in order that the maxi- 
mum number of pupils may participate in the extra- 
classroom activities. 

Fifth, activities under such a programme will be open 
to all pupils of the school on exactly the same basis. 

Sixth, faculty participation and support are essential. 
The members of the faculty must understand the prob- 
lems involved and actively co-operate with the pupils 
in their social affairs. They must lend a helping hand. 
As has been clearly indicated, the time is past when the 
teachers can shirk the responsibility of directing the 
social life of high school boys and girls. 

The success of a large high school in the Middle West 
in reorganizing its social life and developing a demo- 
cratic atmosphere in the school through the use of 
such a constructive programme as has been outlined is 
worthy of comment. In this school there were eight 
secret societies and seven exclusive clubs which in many 
respects were legalized secret societies. When the com- 
munity and the board of education through propaganda 
had become aroused to the state of affairs, action was 
taken by the board abolishing these organizations from 
the school. This action was not taken, however, until 



268 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

the pupils had been prepared for the inevitable step. 
A demand for purposeful clubs should be developed as 
far as possible before formal action is taken against 
fraternities. In some schools formal action has not 
been necessary to remove secret societies. They have 
died from lack of interest because of the dominance of 
the spirit of purposeful clubs. Immediately following 
the action of the board the faculty formulated and an- 
nounced to the pupils and the community their policy 
looking to the formation of new clubs and activities. 
The regulations announced provide: 

i. That membership in student organizations shall be 
open to all pupils on the same basis. 

2. That membership shall be determined by the work 
and purpose of the club in accordance with the rules set 
up by the society and approved by the student affairs 
committee. 

3. That all meetings shall be held in the high school 
building. 

4. That all organizations shall contribute, in some 
way, to one of the objectives of secondary education. 

5. That all meetings shall be sponsored by high school 
teachers. 

6. That all bills shall be audited by the financial 
board of control. 

7. That no student shall belong to more than one 
society other than his class organization, unless he meet, 
at least, the eligibility requirement in scholarship of the 
athletic association. 

8. That members, upon severing their connection 
with the school, shall cease to be members of high 
school organizations in exactly the same manner as one 
ceases to be a member of a class organization. 

9. That any pupil or group of pupils wishing to apply 



A CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL PROGRAMME 269 

for permission to form a new club should arrange for a 
conference with the student affairs committee by seeing 
the principal and filling out the application blank. 

The reaction of the pupils to the constructive policy 
initiated is interesting. The presidents of the exclusive 
girls' societies, which, in one or two instances, had been 
in the school for twenty years, were called into the prin- 
cipal's office for a conference at the time the societies 
were abolished. They welcomed the opportunity to 
take part in the new programme of activities in which 
all girls of the school had been invited to join. Some 
of these same girls who had not, as a rule, associated 
with those outside of their group, were among the very 
first to "big sister" the timid, incoming freshman girls. 
These girls not only entered into the work of newly 
organized, purposeful, democratic clubs, but they helped 
to initiate them. The presidents of the boys' societies 
admitted that their societies were undemocratic. One 
president stated that he had no desire to remain longer 
in his organization and that he had expected to with- 
draw even though the school permitted the societies to 
continue. Some of the leaders in the former fraternity 
groups entered whole-heartedly into the formation of 
worthy societies which were organized on a democratic 
basis. 

The response of the student body generally was spon- 
taneous and genuine. With the exception of one fra- 
ternity group, which for a time continued its activities 
in a clandestine manner, the fraternities satisfied the 
board as to their conduct. The vast majority of pupils 
entered into the spirit of the new activities, and by the 
end of the first year many purposeful organizations were 
in operation. Through these organizations and their 
activities, practically every pupil in the school was par- 



270 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

ticipating in some way in the social activities of the 
school. 

An exclusive dramatic society was replaced by a 
democratic one, and so many applied for membership 
that a waiting list had to be arranged. The new society 
had a purpose, and for the first time its membership was 
generally open to pupils having dramatic ability. The 
candidates for membership could not be "blackballed" 
by fellow pupils, and those who had ability could be 
sure of acceptance into the society. Exclusive debat- 
ing societies were replaced by a real discussion club that 
immediately had a membership as large as that of those 
replaced. Other examples of constructiveness in hand- 
ling the social activities of the school, such as the 
initiation of a writers' club, all girls' league, a music 
club, the student council, a nature-study club, a chem- 
istry club, and the girls' athletic association, should also 
be mentioned. Membership in these clubs was based 
solely Upon merit and the interest of the pupil in the 
work of the particular club or society. 

It is significant that the new programme of social 
activities resulted in the elimination of undesirable clubs 
and societies and the initiation of worthy ones without 
serious conflict of purpose between the faculty and stu- 
dent body. This fact demonstrates that there is a de- 
mand in our secondary schools for a democratic, pur- 
poseful organization of the social life of the student 
body. 

The spirit of the student body and hence the spirit 
of the school are determined to a very great degree by 
the type and spirit of the social life. Through the evil 
tendencies set up by the wrong type of club or society 
the work of the school can be interfered with to a 
remarkable extent, as has been demonstrated many 



A CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL PROGRAMME 271 

times. On the other hand, the right sort of social 
organization may become a powerful factor in training 
for citizenship. It opens up the avenue for training in 
citizenship through practice, and this is the best assur- 
ance we have that our boys and girls will go forth from 
the school capable of participating in the responsibilities 
of adult life. A real obligation rests upon the school to 
direct the social activities of high school boys and girls 
into worthy channels. 



SOME SOCIAL ASPECTS OF PHYSICAL 
EDUCATION AND GAMES 

The wave of enthusiasm for games, especially for 
outdoor sports, that swept over this country in the last 
two decades, illustrated by the rapid spread of the 
playground movement and the growing popularity of 
outdoor games for adults, such as tennis and golf, indi- 
cated clearly that increasing emphasis would be placed 
in and out of schools, on the values of physical training 
and particularly of play. 

The war has given this movement a mighty impetus. 
The examination of millions of draft men has taught 
Americans invaluable lessons. Hundreds of thousands 
of men were found incapacitated for military service by 
physical defects that in youth could easily have been 
removed by medical attention or through proper regi- 
mens of corrective physical exercises. Others were in- 
capacitated, not from any organic defect, but merely 
from lack of wholesome physical exercise. The war has 
also shown that the nation that neglects its man-power 
endangers its existence. Man-power consists of the 
entire people. Public health is a national concern. 
Military success depends not merely on the army of 
select men, but upon all who toil. Large numbers of 
physically unfit reduce the industrial efficiency of the 
nation and endanger the success of the army. With 
characteristic practicalness the Americans, the moment 
these facts were clearly understood, turned to a con- 
sideration of solutions of the problem. The instrument 
for its solution must be the public schools. 

A technical discussion of physical education has no 

272 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND GAMES 273 

place in this volume. The purpose of this chapter is 
to examine briefly the larger aims that should charac- 
terize a programme of physical education in the junior 
and senior high schools and the spirit in which it ought 
to be administered. 

Any effective system of physical education must be 
based on thoroughgoing medical inspection. This medi- 
cal inspection must begin at the cradle and continue 
throughout the child's public-school life. A cumulative 
record for every individual is essential, a record that 
the pupil will carry with him from room to room and 
from school to school, one that is practical and usable 
and is used. There is medical inspection in some Amer- 
ican communities, but in few places is it effective. 
Cumulative cards are kept, but for want of adequate 
equipment and adequate forces for medical inspection 
and physical education these cards are frequently un- 
used. Elaborate examinations and record-making are 
of no value unless an honest attempt is made to remove 
the defects and to record progress. 

There must be a thoroughgoing system of corrective 
exercises for the elimination of physical defects revealed 
by medical inspection. Such provision will require an 
expenditure of time and money as yet unknown in 
American schools. But that it is necessary has been 
shown by the experiences of the war. Human life has 
been shown to be so valuable, even from an economic 
point of view, that no state can afford anything short of 
the maximum physical development of every individual 
of normal mentality. 

Adequate provision for physical education in Ameri- 
can schools requires a work-study-play programme ex- 
ceeding the dreams of even the most ardent pre-war 
advocate of physical education. The provisions in 



274 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

American high schools are at present utterly inade- 
quate. It is unusual to find physical education or play 
required for more than a year or two even in the best 
schools, and because of physical limitations it can rarely 
be required for more than one or two forty-five-minute 
periods per week. To be effective, this work must be 
continued not merely throughout the school period but 
throughout life. The high school must provide a gen- 
erous period of play for every boy and every girl for 
every day the school is in session. Such a programme 
will necessitate large and well-equipped playgrounds 
and possibly large gymnasiums. The present tendency 
toward outdoor play seems to be, from every point of 
view, exceedingly wholesome and may result in mini- 
mizing the importance of gymnasiums even where the 
winters are cold. But whatever may happen to gym- 
nasiums, commodious grounds will be required. It will 
be impossible to carry on an effective programme of 
physical education in a junior or senior high school 
whose real estate consists of a down-town city block 
entirely occupied by the building. Large school sites 
will be necessary and a programme of study that will 
permit of continuous use of these grounds by large 
groups of pupils throughout the day. 

Well-trained teachers will be the most essential factor 
in such a programme. The normal schools, colleges, 
and universities must meet this teacher need. 

In the programme of physical education of the future 
the chief emphasis must be placed on the playing of 
games. It is primarily to stress this point and to em- 
phasize the social values that must accrue from a whole- 
some programme of physical education that this chap- 
ter is written. 

Many experts hold that games provide, for those who 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND GAMES 275 

are normal physically, the most natural and best possi- 
ble physical training. Games have been introduced 
into gymnasium class work, and are rapidly encroaching 
upon the time given to the formal gymnastic drill. The 
setting-up exercises are recognized as valuable, but no 
longer monopolize all of even short physical-education 
periods. The game has values, which no set of calis- 
thenic drills can possibly have. These values are social, 
and explain the importance of the position which games 
are usurping in the life of our schools, in the regular 
class work, in physical training, and, above all, as an 
extra-classroom activity. The validity of our present 
athletic practices must be determined primarily by an 
examination of these social values. Such an examina- 
tion will at the same time make clear the spirit and the 
activities that must dominate the physical-education 
programme of the future. 

The educative value of play depends upon a strict 
and immediate enforcement of the rules of the game. 
Play without the enforcement of law, the rules of the 
game, immediately degenerates into mere license, and 
becomes antisocial rather than social, the participants 
becoming mere buccaneers, stealing victory by cunning 
or by flagrant violation of ethics and law; but where the 
rules are enforced games provide one of the finest and 
most effective means of moral training. Where rules 
are enforced and the ethics of the game are observed, 
victory depends upon obedience, loyalty, courage, the 
sinking of self in the common cause, team-work, devo- 
tion to duty, initiative, self-reliance, determination, the 
ability to face seeming defeat resolutely and coolly and 
with self-control. Every one of these values is elemen- 
tal and must be included in any statement of the moral 
aims of education in a democracy. These virtues are, 



276 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

to be sure, cultivated in many other activities of the 
school, in some more and in some less, but nowhere 
more effectively than in a hotly contested athletic game. 

The boy who in a fit of anger commits an ugly foul 
which brings down on his team the penalty which loses 
the game is given a vivid lesson in the importance of self- 
control. He will exercise more of it in the next game; 
and the boy who bows to the will of the umpire is con- 
ceiving a respect for law that is bound to function in 
every situation in life. 

Then there is that spirit of fair play, that attitude of 
mind and conception of sportsmanship on the player's 
part which will make it impossible for him to take un- 
fair advantage of an opponent, which will make every 
sharp practice repugnant, and which will cause him to 
rejoice in his opponent's victory and sympathize in 
his defeat. The man or woman who carries such ideals 
of sportsmanship into the practical affairs of life cannot 
help being a better citizen, and must become thereby 
more efficient in the rough-and-tumble, give-and-take, 
of the business and social world. 

Games in our public schools are, moreover, demo- 
cratic. Rich and poor rub elbows together and merit 
wins. The best man makes the team. The entire 
group is unified by one common cause; social, racial, 
and financial distinctions are forgotten in support of a 
team, itself composed of representatives of all social 
elements. The human relationships between all classes 
which such an experience establishes cannot but eventu- 
ate in strengthened democracy. 

The effect on the individual is no less important. 
Loosely managed, the games will detract from study, 
will create of the boys cheap sports, self-centred 
lovers of publicity, will lead to imitation of the evils of 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND GAMES 277 

professional athleticism; will inculcate, instead of the 
manly virtues, rudeness and dishonesty, and, in general, 
a low standard of behavior. Under proper admin- 
istration those personal virtues mentioned above, of 
honor, courage, loyalty, obedience, courtesy, will be 
fostered both in the individual and in the group. If the 
athletic systems of the great English public schools have 
meant anything, they have meant the training of Eng- 
lish youth in just these values. But in England it has 
been the ruling class which has had the advantage of 
this training. In America the masses must receive it. 
If these experiences are worth anything, they must be 
brought within the reach of all. It must be the aim of 
the junor and senior high schools to make it possible 
for every pupil to play games, to represent something 
or somebody in athletic contests. 

These ideals cannot be fully realized until every 
member of the school, boy or girl, can have the privilege 
of representing some group in the school in a game; and 
this goal cannot be attained until a sufficient number of 
experts are employed to organize and direct the schools 
in the playing of games, and sufficient gymnasium and 
playground space has been provided to accommodate 
during the course of the day the whole school. With 
the advent of a longer school-day and more adequate 
facilities for play, provision will be made for both indoor 
and outdoor play during the day, after the fashion of the 
Gary schools. There are few schools at the present time 
in which the ideal of every member participating in play 
can be realized. The American people have not yet been 
educated to the point of the necessary financial support. 

In the meantime, the circle of those participating in 
games can be enormously widened, the public must be 
educated to their value through interclass games, and the 



278 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

pupils must be organized into clubs for athletic sports, all 
under faculty supervision but largely under pupil man- 
agement. In one school in which the every-member- 
participating ideal cannot be realized because of lack of 
funds, the following intramural athletic activities are 
carried on: interclass basket-ball tournaments for boys 
and girls; interclass baseball tournament for boys; inter- 
class track meet for boys; interclass gymnasium contests 
for boys and girls; tennis tournaments for boys and girls 
in neighboring playgrounds and parks; a hockey club, 
with interclass contests, for girls; a "hiking" club for 
girls, and cross-country runs for boys. With even a 
small playground wonders can be accomplished in mass 
athletics when there is a will to do it. 

There are those who fear that interclass and inter- 
group contests will lead to rowdyism, sometimes in the 
form of color rushes and class scraps. Experience has 
taught that these outbursts will not occur where the 
internal government of the school is on a democratic 
basis. To forego these activities through fear that they 
cannot be controlled is to neglect one of the richest op- 
portunities for education which the school affords. 

It is no longer necessary to argue in America that the 
playing of games has the same value for girls as for 
boys. The future mother of the race must not only be 
strong and womanly, but also be filled with the same 
high ideals of honor, courage, loyalty, and devotion that 
we consider indispensable to the men of the race. 
Games can make the same high contributions to both 
sexes. Identical provision for physical education and 
play must be made for both sexes. 

Are interscholastic athletics justifiable? Ever since 
these contests were forced upon unwilling faculties by 
the pupils they have been the object of attacks by many 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND GAMES 279 

critics. Nor has the marvellous development of our 
interscholastic activities into a gigantic business with 
enormous crowds, enormous gate receipts, boundless en- 
thusiasm, with complicated machinery in the form of 
associations of schools, and with large bodies of officials 
and elaborate codes of rules for the government of these 
contests, lessened the amount of criticism. It has, 
rather, increased it. The very magnitude of these 
enterprises from a financial standpoint is one of the 
chief objectives of the attacks of the critic. 

One of the clearest statements of the arguments 
against intercollegiate athletics is an argument by 
President Foster, of Reed College. 1 President Foster 
holds that the aims of athletics, when conducted for 
education, are (i) to develop all the students and fac- 
ulty physically and to maintain health; (2) to promote 
moderate recreation, in the spirit of joy, as a preparation 
for study rather than as a substitute for study; and (3) 
to form habits and to inculcate ideals of right living. 
When athletics are conducted to win games, says Presi- 
dent Foster, the aims are (1) to win games — to defeat 
another person or group being the chief end; (2) to 
make money — as it is impossible otherwise to carry on 
athletic business; (3) to attain individual or group fame 
and notoriety. "These three — which are the control- 
ling aims of intercollegiate athletics — are also the aims 
of horse-racing, prize-fighting, and professional base- 
ball." President Foster says that intercollegiate athletics 
must be incidental to a regime in which every one plays 
for pure recreation. He bitterly arraigns the vices of 
college sports — "commercialism," neglect of studies, 
"immorality" — and advocates as a cure the suspension 
of all intercollegiate athletics for a generation. 

1 Atlantic Monthly, November, 191 5. 



280 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

Other criticisms are that five or eleven men cannot 
take exercise for five hundred people, and that the pub- 
licity which the "star" player receives is particularly 
harmful to boys of high school age. 

The most common arguments on the part of school- 
men, in favor of interschool games, are: that (i) ath- 
letics help to discipline a school by providing an outlet 
for surplus youthful energy; (2) they foster a more 
unified school spirit; (3) they thereby make for democ- 
racy; and, finally, they provide an innocent and stimu- 
lating recreation for the spectator. Apologists even of 
the spectacular side of these great contests are not 
wanting. . . . Luther Gulick says: 

"During the late years we have been hearing great 
condemnation of intercollegiate athletics on the ground 
that the games were played for the spectators, and that 
the spectators, because of their insistence on victory 
and sensation, were debauching the game. Most 
matches are played for the spectators. A great baseball 
or football match ranks with the great play; it is for the 
spectators. The individual becomes fused in the great 
social whole. This power may be used either for right 
or for wrong, but let us dismiss the notion that great 
school games are conducted for the benefit of the player. 
So far as mere muscular exercises are concerned, they 
can be secured just as well alone, in one's room. The 
great things in life are social, and these great games, 
having appealed to the masses, must be examined pri- 
marily with reference to their social effect." 1 

It is evident that interscholastic games cannot be 
justified on the ground that they afford opportunities 
for physical education. The number that receive this 
training is negligible, and is the group that needs it 

1 Journal of Education, September 10, 1915. 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND GAMES 281 

least. These contests must be justified on purely social 
grounds, if at all. Even President Foster does not en- 
tirely condemn them. He says the attendant evils have 
become so great that they ought to be suspended for a 
generation. Such drastic treatment will not commend 
itself to many people, but few will disagree with his con- 
tentions that these contests ought to be incidental to a 
system in which every student participates in games. 
There are, however, important values, peculiar to inter- 
school contests themselves. It is a splendid training to 
meet the pupils of a school from a neighboring city in a 
hot contest, to put forth every ounce of effort in a clean 
fight for victory, yet showing the visitors every courtesy 
and consideration, to bear victory with modesty, or to 
accept defeat with becoming grace. The treatment to 
be accorded visiting teams affords a real opportunity 
for training in self-control, and for developing that tol- 
erance and regard for a stranger, a rival, or an oppo- 
nent that marks the cultured man or woman. Again, 
these contests, gripping the interests of all the pupils, 
are powerful factors in creating a wholesome community 
of interests and in creating fine traditions in the school. 
Rightly used they may be made an effective agency for 
the moral and ethical education of the spectator as well 
as of the players. 

High school athletics ought to be kept on a strictly 
amateur basis. Every reward of a utilitarian character 
ought to be abolished. The practice of giving sweaters, 
blankets, expensive watch fobs, and other useful arti- 
cles to members of teams is, fortunately, fast falling 
into disfavor. No such taint of commercialism should 
ever be connected with these games. The giving of the 
school letters is, of course, free from all such objection, 
and can be made the occasion for crystallizing in the 



282 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

minds of the pupils the highest ideals. Of course, in a 
democratically organized school, as much responsibility 
as possible will be thrown on the pupils in the organiza- 
tion and management of games, both intramural and 
interschool. Every such educational opportunity must 
be improved. 

From the standpoint of the administrator, then, the 
social values of physical education are of scarcely less 
importance than the immediate aims of developing good, 
strong, clean bodies, and at the present time these social 
values need special emphasis for the reason that they 
may be overlooked. It would be possible to attain the 
immediate aims of physical education without securing 
these social values. A most efficient system of medical 
inspection and of body-building exercises could be devel- 
oped and maintained without any reference whatever to 
the social values that ought to be attained. But such a 
policy would be most short-sighted. 

The English people have long been noted for their 
love of outdoor sports and their ideals of sportsmanship. 
The people in general, and particularly the middle and 
upper class of Englishmen from which her statesmen 
have been drawn, have been lovers and players of games. 
It is significant that in more than four years of warfare 
not a single human life was lost at sea through the fail- 
ure of the officers of the British Navy and British Mer- 
chant Marine to play the game according to rules. 
Both on land and on sea the British were scrupulous in 
regard to the rules of the game, in other words, the 
rules of modern warfare, in a conflict that threatened their 
very existence. On the other hand, Germany displayed 
a shameful lack of sportsmanship, utterly disregarded 
every rule of the game. If the Germans had learned to 
play they could never have been so ruthless in war. 



PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND GAMES 283 

The problem of physical education, then, is a matter 
of national concern. In the first place, economic and 
political equality depends on the possession of good, 
strong bodies. That nation that desires a place in the 
sun must be industrially efficient. Industrial efficiency 
must be founded upon the health and physical efficiency 
of the race. Secondly, no democracy can afford to over- 
look the opportunities afforded by an adequate pro- 
gramme of physical education and play for strengthen- 
ing its citizens in all virtues included in that splendid 
term, "good sportsmanship." 

Far more generous provision must and will be made 
in the immediate future by America for the physical 
upbuilding of its youth. In this programme medical 
inspection, scientific gymnastics, and corrective exer- 
cises will be given great emphasis. But the playing of 
games will be regarded as even more important. Those 
games that can be played throughout life will become 
the most popular. The school or the school administra- 
tion that neglects its duty in this respect will assume 
a great responsibility. 



THE HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY 1 

Recently a large university had plans drawn for a 
model high school building. This was in design and 
execution to reflect modern educational conceptions with 
reference to high school architecture. The first and 
even the second elaborate sets of plans for this " ideal" 
high school omitted all provision for a library. No such 
building as projected in this instance, we are but begin- 
ning to realize, can house and provide for the free and 
full expression of the activities which more and more 
are going to centre in the high school library. Indeed, 
the internal life of the school must for many purposes 
centre in the library rooms. 

The aggressive campaign for better books, better li- 
brary organization, and better school librarians has 
scarcely begun. We have, and rightly, aroused much 
enthusiasm over vocational guidance, educational gui- 
dance, supervised study, differentiated curriculums, new 
socialized recitations, school " projects" and longer 
school-day. Yet all this loosening up of the old formal 
restricted school procedure must culminate in an efficient 
smooth-working modern library organization and cen- 
tre. What is meant by "modern library organization" 
will become increasingly clear as I proceed. Somehow, 
we have not been able to make a national issue — a prop- 
aganda — out of our library convictions, as we have, for 
example, our methods of teaching spelling. We are not 
in the press enough. Our agitation is too ladylike. We 

1 Address delivered before the joint meeting of the Departments 
of Secondary Education and the Library Department of N. E. A. r 
July, 1 91 6, New York City. 

284 



THE HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY 285 

hark back to anciently honored culture too exclusively. 
We do not adjust our library theories to the demands of 
the educational journals, and write in the language these 
readers demand. There are too few books on the library 
— especially the school library. There are scarcely even 
theories as to libraries for adolescents. We must invade 
the field of educational literature more boldly and read 
into the best educational theory to-day the library's pro- 
gramme and attitude. Some one has said that the 
modern high school recitation is one-half shop or lab- 
oratory, one-half library. We have not made this idea 
articulate in the sense of interpreting it and stating it 
clearly in terms of actual systematically organized school 
activity. All this, in part at least, means that we have 
not at present, in adequate formulation, either our school- 
library philosophy or its technic and administration. 
I know high school men who are finely fired with the 
vision of our one and one-half million high school boys 
and girls in the process of being made good, discriminat- 
ing, critical readers of our daily and weekly publications. 
They see that the cause of nationalizing (and interna- 
tionalizing) our secondary education actually does de- 
pend largely upon our achieving this high purpose. 
What these high-minded high school men do not have 
is such a knowledge of school-library technic, furniture, 
and other appointments, space requirements, trained 
teacher-librarian standards, economical and efficient 
methods of administration, which will make the library 
not a collection of books, but a well-organized, smooth- 
working, efficient "form of service." 

Modern high school education is no longer mere book 
memorization in small daily doses with verbal tests. 
Its method, content, and purpose have clearly broken 
over all bounds of mere academicism. It is entering the 



286 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

twentieth-century stage responsive to the peculiar and 
varied educational demands imposed upon it. These 
demands in turn imply a library organization and equip- 
ment correspondingly varied. 

THE PRESENT SITUATION 

There are many evidences that the campaign for mak- 
ing library content a vital force in modern life is suc- 
ceeding. The library extension of itself into branches 
means its extension in function. While conditions 
throughout the nation are very different, still we are all 
becoming aware of the high spots as well as the low. 
We know well that the public has not developed its con- 
sciousness of the value of the book, that public-school 
pupils have not, that even teachers are not very respon- 
sive to the appeal for the wide and economic use of 
library facilities. We know, also, by shining examples 
in many states that this consciousness can be developed. 
Few cities know as keenly as Los Angeles does that as 
yet only one-fifth of its people use the proffered library 
service, and while Portland, with its 908 agencies for 
distributing books, may seem too far away to emulate, 
still no one forgets these things and more and more 
begin to question the possibilities suggested. While the 
91 colleges and 93 normal schools, with the assistance of 
library schools and training schools in city libraries, seem 
at present a meagre source of supply for the thousands 
of possible fields for such experts, still they constitute 
the nucleus — a necessary and fairly well-organized be- 
ginning. Investigations like the one at Rochester show- 
ing reading to be, in point of time spent, the chief recrea- 
tion as well as business of school children, emphasizes 
another important kind of possible school-library ser- 
vice. While it appears on first looking into it that the 



THE HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY 287 

various state library associations seem to have effected 
little constructive co-operation with any considerable 
number of particular high schools, still the intention to 
do this is clearer and the method of approach determined 
upon. 

This self-consciousness of what is to be done has been 
clarified also by the disclosures of various so-called local 
"surveys." Superintendent Engleman, of Decatur, 111., 
has contributed much by finding out for a whole 
school system just what the reading horizons and the 
reading facilities are for his entire high school pupil 
population. This study in a system where the Eng- 
lish and other language departments are very strong 
has moved another school superintendent, whose school 
facilities for stimulating the use of books are almost 
criminally meagre, to give, also, his incriminating 
disclosure. Doctor C. E. Holley has shown the strik- 
ingly high correlation of library facilities in the homes 
of high school boys and girls in several Western cities 
with persistence in school. No other condition has so 
high a correlation. Principal White, of Kansas City, 
Kan., has shown that lack of library facilities appears to 
be a larger factor in high school elimination. More 
careful and elaborate studies will, doubtless, create in 
us the "library conscience" said to exist now in profes- 
sional librarians, but very rarely to be found in high 
school teachers. 

Contributing in a negative way to this conscience are 
the almost derisive characterizations of the present mot- 
ley collections of books going under the name of high 
school libraries. I am impressed with the fact that al- 
most all who write or speak on my present theme resort 
to this caricaturing of school libraries. Constructively 
and of more value, we have library idealists like Miss 



288 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

Hall, Miss Hopkins, and others, willing to picture for 
us the ideal school library, the ideal school library archi- 
tecture with proper provision for the library, the ideal 
librarian, and the ideal process when these three factors 
are harmoniously working together as an organic part 
of the school's life. We must somehow read all this 
into our high school educational philosophy. 

A sketch of the actual high school library work in a 
particular state will, without further comment, empha- 
size the need for an aggressive campaign for better 
school libraries. 1 

An accredited high school is a school whose instruc- 
tion is approved by the state university, and whose stu- 
dents, after receiving this instruction, enter the univer- 
sity without examination. To these high schools, some 
400 in number, was sent an elaborate questionnaire. 
With this list of questions we hoped to secure fairly 
complete information from the state as a whole regard- 
ing every phase of library activity. We received ade- 
quate replies from 183, presumably of the better half of 
the total number; some of these were personally visited 
also. These schools considered, then, enroll 60,500 pupils. 
They appropriate $23,485 for library purposes, 38 cents 
per pupil. They own 203,947 volumes, 3.3 volumes per 
pupil. The meagreness of this is apparent when we are 
familiar with the elaborate and luxurious scientific lab- 
oratory and the kitchen and shop equipments. Even 
more niggardly does this policy appear when we consider 
the highly paid experts who make the laboratory and 
shop vital by spending their professional time in per- 
sonal supervision, and contrast with this the almost 

1 1 am indebted for assistance in interpreting the data on high 
school libraries in Illinois to Miss Eliza R. Pendrey, a graduate stu- 
dent in the university, now a librarian in Chicago. 



THE HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY 289 

total lack of professional experts, whose training and 
enthusiasm are equally necessary to secure an equally 
vital use of books. We find only 36 acting librarians 
with any technical training at all, and only 71 with any 
college or university training. This means with any 
status at all comparable with what the pupil considers 
"professional standing." It means that in the other 112 
of the better half of the high school systems of this 
state either the pupils themselves, the office girl, the 
needy friend of the principal or school-board member, or 
some one needing an indirect pension, or some one book- 
ish but with a floating residence, is presiding over the 
books. It often happens that it is a teacher who must 
do the double (and doubly useless) task of tending the 
books and acting as the tired monitor of the unsuper- 
vised "study hall." In only twenty-four school libraries 
can there be said to be in operation moderately modern 
scientific methods of library organization and admin- 
istration. In nine others an acting librarian gives half 
time. In many others a possible two hours daily may 
be given. Not infrequently no regular time is allotted 
to any one. 

It is largely a matter of organization and of library 
conscience, therefore. We must interpret our philoso- 
phy of school library values in terms of possible and 
simple school administrative practice. Our conception 
of the profound educational value of all recorded intel- 
lectual resources which may be housed in school libraries 
must be expressed in terms of institutional adjustments 
which those in charge of high schools can adopt. 

Thousands of books, selected without a definite pol- 
icy, uncatalogued and, of necessity, therefore, mostly un- 
used, are not worth a few hundred always easily avail- 
able for immediate use. There are 92 card catalogues in 



290 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

these 183 high schools. There should be 183. In the 
equally important matter of selection, only 80 use any 
kind of approved list. Some do not know " approved 
lists" exist, some use lists in the backs of standard dic- 
tionaries, some even use a text-book publisher's lists. 

In forty-three of these cities there is no public library. 
Thirty-two of these high schools provide no school 
library room. Indeed, only 87 of these 183 better high 
schools have a library room at all. In most of the 
other 96 the books are scattered from room to room 
and from hall to study room or principal's outer office, 
or alcove of assembly room. With no room, of course, 
there are no tables or chairs, no adequate reading light, 
no comfort, no quiet, no congenial surroundings. Under 
these conditions the supervision of a pupil's study 
amounts to little, and the much-to-be-desired adven- 
turous and leisurely exploitations of the world in its 
literature, and the wholesome light recreative reading 
amounts to nothing. 

These high schools vary in enrolment from 31 to 3,000, 
yet there can, of course, be no standard scale of library 
appropriations for the variety of equipment and profes- 
sional service required based upon a per capita. In 
many obvious respects library facilities for the small and 
the large high school are the same. The number of 
duplicate copies and the degree of co-operation with an 
efficient public library are two factors which affect ap- 
propriation. In these particular schools, however, there 
are within the high school group of any equal enrolment 
a variation in per pupil appropriation of $0 to $2. 
What is most interesting, however, is that the circula- 
tion or use of library varies not with its appropria- 
tion but with its library rooms and trained librarians. 
The school libraries least used have the lowest percen- 



THE HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY 291 

tage of library rooms and trained librarians, thus sug- 
gesting a way to allow volumes to stand unused and 
money and unique educational opportunity to be wasted. 
The only inference here is that, therefore, appropria- 
tion for the school library is no more standardizable at 
present than is health, but should correspond to possi- 
ble library use. There is no limit in sight. None should 
be set, except as to selection, organization, and admin- 
istration. 

In these schools it is pleasant to note that the open 
shelf has almost entirely replaced the locked cases and 
the closed stacks. Nearly all the books are for circula- 
tion. There are, however, few instances of free text- 
books, and, unfortunately, as yet these library facilities 
noted above are but infrequently open to the commu- 
nity or to the upper-grade pupils, and even when they 
are little use of them has been secured. 

Current periodicals increase in popularity and educa- 
tional use of them becomes more general. The schools 
report in all 1,448 magazines, 59 schools not subscribing 
to any, however. Free government and state bulletins 
are not so generally received as they should be, 130 of 
these schools receiving none at all. This lost oppor- 
tunity is particularly costly, of course, to the depart- 
ments of agriculture and domestic science. Again, only 
five of these high schools had availed themselves of the 
help of the Illinois State Library Commission. Two had 
secured free loans of books, one had had questions an- 
swered, while two had been helped in organizing. Here 
possible free and expert library service goes unused. 

The idea of attractive library rooms seems to be 
spreading. The returns show increased use of pictures, 
statues, window-seats, noiseless tables and chairs, bulle- 
tins, book exhibits, potted plants, flowers, and other 



292 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

standard library furnishings and fittings. Some report 
piano rolls, slides, victrola records, etc. 

The " library consciousness" of the high school fac- 
ulty is reported as " low." The co-operation with trained 
librarians seems somewhat better, though the interest 
on the whole is chiefly confined to the English and 
history teachers and to such conventional library uses 
as "required reading" and a similar use of current mag- 
azines for specific "class reports." Some very sugges- 
tive things are reported, such as "bulletinizing clippings 
of historical interest," collecting antiques, serving read- 
ing clubs, planning for competitive readings, and later 
"extemporaneous" discussions of topics of national in- 
terest. 

It is surprising to note that scarcely any of these 183 
high schools so much as mention the relation of the 
library to vocational guidance, the possibilities of each 
movement — the essence — not being realized. Maybe this 
is why each movement progresses so slowly. They need 
each other. Also a "course in vocational guidance" is 
wholly dependent upon library collections of the scat- 
tered and bulletin literature. Indeed, all free class or 
independent (senior high school) educational work be- 
yond literalness of text-book use depends upon a good 
school library. 

As to student activities, a few dramatic and literary 
societies are reported as having originated in the high 
school library. Some libraries are filing past debates 
and past educational records, such as examination ques- 
tions, by departments. Many are accumulating pam- 
phlets and clippings for specific purposes. In the field 
of art and music, likewise, sheet music and pictures are 
being collected. Not much is reported regarding the 
possible valuable collections of suitable library content 



THE HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY 293 

bearing upon athletics, health craft, holidays, commence- 
ment, and other topics upon which legitimate interests 
of high school boys and girls are from time to time 
focussed. 

One reports an interesting device for developing a 
library esprit de corps. 

"One phase of the work here which has proven very 
satisfactory and which I have not seen mentioned as 
followed elsewhere is the plan of having high school 
students as library assistants. I have one for each 
study period in the day, and also before and after 
school. Have had about twelve who have worked this 
year. This April I took fifteen more and gave them 
some talks on the work and some practice, and they 
will now be ready to be regular assistants next year. 
They charge and discharge books, and assist in refer- 
ence work, etc. They like it very much and are a great 
help. In fact, I could not manage without them. 

"For their side, they feel that the familiarity with all 
phases of library work, the training in accuracy, prompt- 
ness and reliability, the knowledge of many books they 
would not otherwise come in contact with, more than 
compensates for the time and work given. It also in- 
creases their acquaintances among students and teach- 
ers and altogether is considered quite an honor. The 
picnic, which includes all those who have worked for a 
semester some time in their course as library assistant, 
has become a very enjoyable annual affair. 

"The library class above mentioned is composed of 
the various assistants, both active and past. We have 
had to meet after school, and so can give but one period 
a week, which is often broken in upon by other things, 
and is not time enough for the many interests we want 
to take up. 



294 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

"This system also does much to make the library a 
vital part of the school, so I have taken the liberty of 
calling your attention to it." 

Only a few schools offer classroom instruction in the 
library art (or science) with the school library serving 
as the laboratory. 

Many high schools are co-operating with the public 
library, enjoying every desirable privilege which could 
be offered pupils as well as teachers. In one instance 
the public library adjoining is almost a part of the 
school, a place for study with a plan of co-operation in 
discipline, of purchasing reference books, and a system 
of regular observation and report on the study assign- 
ments of pupils in smooth operation. In several in- 
stances the high school library is a branch of the public 
library. 

The most urgent reason for those with the new school 
spirit and the library spirit in education to come together 
in an institution which we shall call "The Modern High 
School" is that in spirit they are identical. Their atti- 
tudes toward the real nature of the educative process 
are the same. 

Perhaps the simplest and most desirable library con- 
ditions may be found in three high schools of the state 
of about 500 or 600 enrolment. In these the problem of 
attitude and discipline is not so serious as to becloud real 
library work, and almost ideal library conditions exist. 
Here are found splendidly equipped library rooms, excel- 
lent librarians, and serious study work being done by 
the pupils. 

One of these is in a school in which supervised-study 
methods have been adopted and the library fills a very 
vital place in the school. The young people come to 
the library from the various study rooms whenever they 



THE HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY 295 

wish to use library books, or they may sometimes obtain 
permission to come there to study their own books. 
The librarian knows personally almost all of the pupils 
and is able to help them in their work. She has made 
an interesting survey of various study methods, and the 
reflection of these in subsequent resulting recitations. 
She has found that almost invariably a lack of good 
study methods in the library is correlated with low- 
grade work in the classroom. Such systematic library 
work is made possible partly by the size of the school 
which makes it possible for the librarian thus to know 
the pupils and their needs and to do conscientious work 
with them all. 

Many interesting systems have been devised to check 
attendance in the library. Such systems include the 
" admit slip," the "check lists," "self-registration," etc. 
Similarly various systems of circulation are being used 
to meet various needs. 

One of the larger high schools of Chicago has such a 
great demand for books that it is necessary to circulate 
them by the hour during the school-day and just over- 
night after school. It may be noted in passing that no 
text-books or modern fiction are circulated, hence all 
this demand for supplementary study and reference 
work only. In some periods as many as 40 books are 
thus circulated and a maximum of 185 books per day 
has been attained. An eight days' circulation here was 
1,070 plus an additional attendance in the library of 
1,400 students. As the attendance in this library is 
voluntary on the part of the pupils, such a record may 
truly represent what a valuable addition and help a 
library is to the pupils of the school. 

Similarly other schools may be described which are 
doing earnest library work. Such library habits and 



296 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

appreciation are thus being developed as will be of great 
value to the pupils after they leave school. English 
and history, and I could include almost as well any 
school subject, can no more be taught properly in our 
public schools without an adequate library organization 
than can botany or physics be taught without a labora- 
tory, or manual training or domestic science without 
shop equipment, or athletics without a field. Our pres- 
ent educational emphasis in all grades of public educa- 
tion, admirable in some respects as it surely is, is still 
dangerously and will eventually be disastrously one- 
sided, unless at least one fundamental oversight be seen 
and remedied without delay. 

Of our two great sources and instruments of culture, 
nature and human language, the former of late, as the 
latter in earlier educational history, has tended to usurp 
the field of our school efforts. Modern science and mod- 
ern industry have by their very vitality and obvious 
worth tended to make us forget the equally fundamental, 
if more subtle, claims upon our school equipment of 
human language in its broadest meaning as acted and 
spoken in drama and poetry, sung and read in music 
and literature. Somehow modern scientific and indus- 
trial realism in education, though succeeding in keeping 
alive our human passion for experimental inquiry and 
investigation of all aspects of nature and in satisfying 
our instinctive demand for participation in constructive 
workmanship and for conscious industrial service and 
practice, even in organization and leadership, still lacks 
a vital humanistic factor. There is one screw loose 
in our modernly educated high school boys and girls. 
Surely nature and the occupations of man, through sci- 
ence and rightly conceived vocational education, must 
be two of our instruments of democratic culture. As 



THE HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY 297 

surely, however, must language, in the form of literature, 
art, and music, be basal to any superstructure designed 
for our modern public-school system. The spirit of 
scholarship, of humanitas, has its early stages, its genetic 
developments, just as has the spirit of science of the con- 
sciousness of craftsmanship. 

The school library must in every respect take its place 
with the school laboratory and the school shop and the 
school gymnasium and playground. This is the funda- 
mental lack of our elaborate school plants to-day. They 
need and they will soon have this laboratory of the 
humanities. We must and we can without delay make 
it educationally bad form and bad business to allow the 
present impression of a modern palatial high school 
building, perfectly appointed in most respects, housing 
absurdly such a motley array of old and useless and 
dirty text-books, out-of-date encyclopaedias and refer- 
ence works, and an unkept shelf, full of equally old, 
black, and forbidding volumes of departments of agri- 
culture, "attic books," gifts often of friends (?) who 
wish to clean up their own attics and get their names in 
local papers as donors. 

Some recent local "surveys" have visioned for us the 
meagre "reading horizons" of high school pupils. We 
have found that persistence in schools even seems to 
depend upon books in the home. We know by records 
of successful school librarians that these "reading hori- 
zons" of high school pupils are amazingly broadened as 
we extend to them, in any systematic way, reading facili- 
ties. In short, we know that education will go hand in 
hand with accessibility to the world's store of wisdom, 
which — we must still not forget — is in books. School 
boards accept as a matter of course the necessity of 
spending large sums on science laboratories and even 



298 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

more liberal outlays on shops for all the practical arts, 
even to the extent of minute conveniences to facilitate 
some minor instructional requirements. The new peda- 
gogy for Latin, for English, and for the social sciences 
demands quite as elaborate supplementary material in 
the way of modern library appointments. All such mat- 
ters as library staff, technical training for all high school 
teachers of the so-called "humanities," administrative 
machinery, budget apportionment, location of library 
rooms and their equipment, courses for credit in use of 
books, etc., are not fortunately unescapable administra- 
tive duties of school officials. 

More than anything else we need to think the library 
into our every-day school consciousness. We need to 
feel that a school library, moreover, is vastly more than 
merely a collection of even choice books. The modern 
school ha9 spread into an institution with function 
reaching far beyond that of merely intellectualizing the 
child. It cares for all that pertains to the complete 
flowering of the pupil's individuality, hygienic, intellec- 
tual, aesthetic, vocational, moral, religious. So the mod- 
ern adequate school library must be, too, an institution 
for the distribution and display and for demonstration 
of all legitimate modern educational tools. 



HIGH SCHOOL PUBLICITY 

Four general attitudes exist toward publicity of high 
school work. First, there is an attitude of indifference. 
Some believe in publicity in a way, but show no particu- 
lar interest and do not seize upon opportunities to use 
it advantageously. Second, there is an attitude that 
results in the use of publicity for selfish ends. Those 
having this point of view believe in publicity and are 
often good publicity agents for themselves first and the 
welfare of the school and community second. Third, 
there is an attitude that publicity is a thing to be 
shunned. Those who shun publicity interpret it as a 
means or method of putting forward the individual 
rather than the work of the school. Their modesty 
blinds them to the possibilities of legitimate advertising. 
The fourth attitude is one of real interest, but is without 
a well-organized and developed programme back of it. 
Many high school principals look upon legitimate pub- 
licity as desirable and necessary to realize the best from 
their efforts in the community. Although they hold 
this point of view, there is no generally accepted pro- 
gramme, practice, or method of securing wide publicity 
of the worthy activities of the school. In fact, little 
constructive attention has been directed toward build- 
ing up a programme of publicity. 

If publicity is to be effective it cannot be left to hap- 
hazard development. The thing which usually hap- 
pens in this event is publicity of an undesirable kind. 
Certain activities and events are emphasized out of all 
proportion to their real worth, and often unfortunate 
events are "played up" in the daily papers, the total 

299 



300 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

effect of which is actually harmful to the school. In 
one high school in which the reporter of the daily paper 
assumed the role of director of publicity for the school, 
the trivial matter of seating the assembly was written 
up under the glaring head-line "Insurrection at the 
High School." There was no insurrection, but some of 
the parents, following the lead of the newspaper, tried 
to make an issue of the affair. Under such sporadic 
attention to publicity, activities and events of deepest 
significance often pass by unnoticed, while many of the 
knotty problems of administration grow out of the lack 
of effort to create a tolerant, if not a favorable, public 
opinion among both pupils and parents. 

Legitimate publicity has great possibilities, and the 
principal or the agent responsible for the school's pub- 
licity really owes it to the school and the community to 
give the matter some thought. Big business is built 
up and maintained through publicity of one kind or 
another. It strives for the creation of good-will and 
faith in its product. Business men realize that it is far 
easier for the salesman to sell his product when people 
know about it beforehand and have faith in the organ- 
ization behind him. In a recent article, John N. Willys, 
president of the Willys-Overland Company, said in 
writing upon "Meeting the Unexpected": "We are all 
of us salesmen of one sort or another. No matter where 
we cast our lot, sooner or later that big word ' Salesman- 
ship ' will loom up and must be reckoned with. Whether 
we are selling the products of a manufacturing establish- 
ment or selling our services, the net result must be the 
same. We must, by the impressions we make, convey 
the idea of ability and earnestness of purpose. . . . 
Our promotion work consists in familiarizing the public 
with our product and methods so far as is practical. 



HIGH SCHOOL PUBLICITY 301 

We realize we cannot bring every purchaser to our plant 
and show him its size and capacity. Still, we must in a 
measure impress him with it. We do this through 
rational advertising in various forms. . . . We realize 
that a certain amount of this work creates a demand 
for any make of machine. . . . The great cumulative 
effect of this advertising is that our sales are made more 
quickly than if we had not done this pioneer work. 
No time is lost in acquainting the buyer with the prod- 
uct. He already knows about it." 

Legitimate publicity will do this pioneer work in the 
case of the school. Generally people believe in their 
schools. Their children are touched in these institu- 
tions, but in reality their interest is more or less arti- 
ficial because they do not know very much about what 
is going on, or how the school is really organized. Pub- 
licity will have a cumulative effect in bringing about a 
better understanding and spirit of co-operation between 
the parents and the school. It will create interest in 
the work that is being done, just as the continued ad- 
vertising of automobiles will to a certain extent create a 
demand for any make of machine. Parents will come 
to believe more strongly in the school as their knowl- 
edge of its affairs grows. 

There is still great need of securing the interest and 
faith of parents in high school work. To some this 
statement may seem out of place, so universal seem- 
ingly is the belief in the secondary school. But all of 
the more recent studies of elimination seem to indicate 
more clearly than did previous ones that pupils do not 
withdraw from high school for economic reasons, except 
in a very limited number of cases, and that more pupils 
really leave the school than earlier figures would seem to 
indicate. Van Denberg, in his study of elimination 



302 



HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 



from the New York City high schools, showed that eco- 
nomic pressure was not a considerable factor. Recent 
figures on high school enrolment seem to indicate that 
even fewer of those who entered the ist grade of the 
elementary school than the 10 to 14 per cent usually 
named as the per cent graduating from the high school 
actually complete the work of the four secondary years. 
Some think that 6 or 8 per cent would be more nearly 
accurate. Statistics in the reports of the U. S. Com- 
missioner of Education show that not more than 38 per 
cent of those who enter the first year of the high school 
remain to graduate. The following table, based upon 
the records of enrolment in 11,224 high schools, shows 
the distribution of pupils in each of the four years of 
the high school upon the basis of 100 pupils in the first 
year. This table is arranged by geographical division 
of the states. 





FIRST YEAR 


SECOND YEAR 


THIRD YEAR 


FOURTH YEAR 


North Atlantic 

North Central 

South Atlantic 

South Central 

Western 


1 — ! 1 — 1 1 — ^1 1 — 1 1 — 1 I — 1 

O O O Q C O 


66 
69 
65 
64 
62 
66 


47 
5i 
44 
43 
45 
48 


39 
43 
28 
28 
37 
38 


United States .... 



In the preparation of this table the number of pupils 
who were actually enrolled in the first year of the high 
school was reduced to the base 100, and the figures given 
for the second, third, and fourth years indicate respec- 
tively the number out of the original 100 who had re- 
mained in school long enough to enroll in each of these 
years. 

It is true that the high school enrolment within the 



HIGH SCHOOL PUBLICITY 303 

past two decades has increased about ten times as rap- 
idly as the growth in population, but the fact still re- 
mains that only about n out of every ioo who enter the 
elementary school complete the twelve years of our 
public-school system. The fact also holds that this in- 
crease in high school enrolment has been rather directly 
due to a kind of idealism of the present generation of 
fathers and mothers that success in life is assured sim- 
ply by attendance upon the high school regardless of 
the relation the training received bears to the actual 
preparation for the work of life. But this period has 
passed. We are now in the midst of a most scrutinizing 
period as to the merits of the work done by the school. 
Attempts are now being made to justify the work in 
terms of the thing the pupil wishes to do in later life. 
We are really awakening to the fact that our loss of 
pupils is growing more largely out of lack of adjustment 
along this line than out of economic necessity. In other 
words, if the number who remain in our regular day 
high schools is very materially increased in proportion 
to the population over the present figures, it will be 
because of the character of the work offered and its 
relation to economic advancement rather than to faith. 
The truth of this statement becomes quite convincing 
when one is dealing with parents or pupils who have 
become prejudiced against further education. Faith 
with them is at low ebb. It is well-nigh impossible to 
do anything with the child from such homes. Even 
compulsory school laws do not help very much, accord- 
ing to the experiences of teachers in dealing with such 
pupils in evening and continuation schools unless the 
work offered really appeals to them in terms of life-career 
motives. 

A new day is being ushered in. Curriculums of study 



304 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

are being organized to serve in reality the needs of 
clearly denned groups of pupils, and non-essential stud- 
ies and parts of courses within these curriculums are 
giving way to the introduction of things of more imme- 
diate importance. Traditional curriculums and courses 
are being reorganized on the basis of immediate rather 
than deferred values. Evening schools, continuation 
classes, part-time schools, and day vocational classes 
are being organized to meet the emergency in education 
and to extend its scope and opportunities. The na- 
tional government has entered the field through the 
passage of the Smith-Hughes and other educational bills. 
It has thus given the movement to vitalize education a 
great impetus. 

The parents must be reached. They must be con- 
vinced of the validity of our new appeal to the boys and 
girls to remain in school. We must have the genuine 
support of the home. We must seek to build up a 
"stay-in-school" spirit. The lack of information on the 
part of parents as to the real work of the school is ap- 
palling. It is not to be wondered at that parents, under 
these circumstances, can be prejudiced in favor of, or 
strongly and vehemently against, the school on the 
most trivial grounds. A mere incident in the day's 
work is sometimes sufficient to prejudice the parents 
against the school. In this day of complexities in mod- 
ern secondary-school organization we owe it to the 
parents to keep them informed. We must pursue a 
policy of publishing as many facts as possible about the 
school. 

The hidden premise in this discussion of the need of 
publicity in building up a faith on the part of parents 
in the work of the school is that publicity has great pos- 
sibilities in developing a genuine school spirit among 



HIGH SCHOOL PUBLICITY 305 

the pupils. In fact, the use of the children themselves 
in creating a favorable attitude toward the work of the 
school cannot be stressed too strongly. The parent is 
mightily influenced by his child. 

The publicity usually given athletics, for example, has 
a strong influence in building up a school sphit and a 
derived interest in other activities. The prowess of the 
team sheds some of its renown upon the school, and in 
years of marked success the entire community will be- 
come intensely interested. The principal and teachers 
will, under these circumstances, often be welcomed and 
counselled with by the most prominent business men of 
the community. One school in Illinois which won a 
national reputation in athletics a few years ago still feels 
the beneficent effects of the interest aroused among the 
parents. 

In another large high school the publicity growing out 
of the organization of and the activities incident to a 
programme for better written and oral speech was far- 
reaching in its effects upon the pupils and through them 
upon the community. This campaign did much to set 
up new standards among the pupils and create faith in 
the institution out among the parents. 

The particular means decided upon to accomplish the 
ends in view was a Better English Week. After reach- 
ing this decision, the teachers of the English department 
set aside one week in the school calendar for this pur- 
pose. Weeks before the date set, four committees — one 
each on publicity, class projects, posters, and assembly 
—composed of teachers and pupils were appointed to 
organize and carry through the many activities of the 
programme. 

The committee on publicity began early to arouse 
the interest of the pupils generally. It prepared a great 



306 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

deal of material for the school and city papers. Through 
the efforts of the committee a four-minute speakers' 
contest was arranged and ten high school pupils made 
four-minute speeches in the leading motion-picture thea- 
tres on topics dealing with the importance of the use of 
good English. The topics selected were: Good English 
Is Essential to Every-Day Living, The Value of Clear 
Enunciation, The Quality of English Learned by the 
Foreign-Born, American Speech Week, English the Com- 
posite Language, The Value of Good English, Better 
English in the High School, A Greater Pride in Our 
Language and Speech, Slang, and Why Not Use Your 
Own Language? The pupils were enthusiastically re- 
ceived by the public in every instance. The week 
selected as Better English Week was the one set aside 
by the Committee on American Speech of the National 
Council of Teachers of English. Thus the school took 
part in a nation-wide programme for better speech. 

The committee on class projects made an appeal to 
all classes in the school to co-operate in the success of 
the week by preparing articles, writing verses, limericks, 
and songs for the papers. The largest single project 
planned, however, was the preparation of a play to be 
given in the assembly before the entire school and inter- 
ested patrons. After some discussion the writers club 
in the school, composed of about thirty pupils interested 
in writing, decided to prepare the play. The result was 
a one-act comedy, entitled "Ready to Wear/' the merit 
of which met with general approval. The committee 
also arranged for a tag day in the school and in each 
home room a sub-committee consisting of about one- 
fifth of the pupils was elected to take charge of the 
tags. They were instructed to tag any one whom they 
heard using incorrect English in the halls and cafeteria. 



HIGH SCHOOL PUBLICITY 307 

The person tagged was instructed to listen and put his 
tag on any fellow pupil or teacher who was guilty of 
incorrect usage. A number of suggested errors were 
given as a basis upon which the tagging should depend. 
Many tags were exchanged during the day. 

The committee on posters offered a series of prizes for 
the best posters prepared by pupils. Many very worthy 
posters driving home the benefits to be derived from the 
use of good English were prepared under the direction 
of the art department, and these were placed in the cor- 
ridors by the committee in charge. During the week 
hundreds of pupils and many parents visited the corri- 
dors to see the exhibit of these better English posters. 

The assembly committee arranged the assembly at 
which the contest of speakers who were to speak in the 
motion-picture theatres was held before the student 
body. This committee also arranged for an assembly, 
when some of the songs written by the pupils were sung 
and the play written by the writers club was presented. 
A parody on "Smiles," sung at one of the assemblies, 
ran as follows: 

There was a boy who used bad English, 
There was a boy who used much slang, 
And this boy would always quake with anguish 
When the "Better English" week began, 
For he knew that if he used a slang word 
Or an error in his speech he made 
He'd be decorated by a tagger 
And he simply could not be saved. 

The words of one of the pupils in summing up the 
effects of Better English Week show the real interest, 
enthusiasm, and success attending the week's activities. 
"The whole week," says the writer, "was regarded as a 



308 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

great success. Some might wonder if such a movement 
really accomplished enough good to warrant its exten- 
sion. Such a deep-seated impression has been left on 
the minds of the pupils that careless English is wrong 
and disgraceful, that no one can question the good to 
be derived from ' Better English' week. 

" Mistakes are still being made and in all probability 
will be made as long as we speak the English language. 
The students have been shown, however, that it is not 
'cute' or clever to use slang, and that it is really worth 
while to substitute good English words for slang, and 
that our language deserves our respect and attention to 
keep it free from the impurities which are constantly 
lessening its beauty and worth." 

The activities of this week's programme were far- 
reaching in their effect. The many ramifications of the 
work, the appeal to practically all pupils, the active par- 
ticipation in the preparation of the programmes, the 
team-work, and the enthusiasm of the pupils carried out 
into the homes unified the school to a remarkable de- 
gree, and awakened in the pupils the worth-whileness of 
a new and higher type of school activity than they had 
been accustomed to before. It raised the school greatly 
in the estimation of the parents and increased their faith 
in it and its ideals. This work got at the very heart of 
the school, the phase of school work most important, yet 
least emphasized and advertised — namely, the common 
activity of classroom teaching. 

The possibilities of publicity through a programme of 
this sort cannot be too strongly stressed. It reaches the 
parent through the child and makes its strongest appeal 
because it popularizes classroom work and makes it im- 
portant in the eyes of the pupil. A programme of this 
sort builds up a genuine school spirit. 



HIGH SCHOOL PUBLICITY 309 

There is still another important function of publicity 
in the administration of our schools. Through publicity 
the way can be opened up for changes in policy. By its 
use the administrator can make a radical change in 
policy seem natural and entirely consistent when the 
time comes for its introduction. One high school prin- 
cipal, together with the faculty, spent one school year 
in giving to the public pertinent facts on scholarship, 
home study, the overcrowded conditions in the build- 
ing, and the consequent need of making classrooms out 
of study halls. By the end of the year, through their 
recurrent suggestions that supervised study was one 
solution, the pupils and the community were anxious to 
try the new plan of organization. In another high 
school the principal and superintendent convinced the 
board of education during a summer vacation that super- 
vised study should be adopted. When pupils and teach- 
ers returned in the fall and found a new order of things, 
the result was not altogether satisfactory. Neither 
teachers nor pupils took any particular pains to insure 
the success of the new programme, and many objections 
were forthcoming from the parents. 

Possibly the best example of publicity as a factor in 
guaranteeing the success of a change in school policy is 
to be found when an attempt to eliminate secret socie- 
ties is made after they have become strongly intrenched. 
In this instance the high school principal takes his life 
in his hand unless he has the united support of his board 
of education and can create a favorable public opinion 
out in the community. He can talk the matter over 
with his superintendent and board from time to time, 
but to reach the community he must plan upon a defi- 
nite campaign of pitiless publicity of facts. His cam- 
paign must precede his attempt to eliminate the socie- 



310 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

ties and be kept up throughout the time the school is 
dealing adversely with these pupil groups. He must 
show the effects of secret societies on attendance, schol- 
arship, and discipline, and dwell upon the unsustainable 
social organization of the school, the undemocratic 
atmosphere of the institution, and the political chicanery 
practised by secret-society members. The principal can- 
not take any chances. Once he has embarked upon such 
a programme he must see it through, realizing all the 
while that he is dealing for the most part with the most 
influential families in his community, while the public 
generally will be more or less apathetic. This general 
constituency must be awakened. A very good example 
of the effectiveness of creating favorable public opinion 
on this problem and the success attendant upon such a 
programme of publicity is to be found in the social 
reorganization of the Central High School, of Grand 
Rapids, Mich., under Principal Jesse B. Davis. His 
report to the board of education on the elimination of 
secret societies demonstrates that it is possible to reor- 
ganize the school and still retain the support and respect 
of the community. 

The elimination of secret societies from a large high 
school in a university centre where the problem was 
found in its most aggravated setting furnishes another 
example of the efficacy of a programme of publicity. In 
this school some fourteen or fifteen secret societies and 
exclusive clubs had become thoroughly intrenched, hav- 
ing a membership within the school of about 300, and 
an alumni membership in the city of about the same 
number. Furthermore, the university fraternities actu- 
ally fostered the spirit of fraternities in the high school, 
so that the atmosphere of the high school was thoroughly 
dominated by exclusive clubs and cliques. 



HIGH SCHOOL PUBLICITY 311 

The faculty of the school, under the direction of the 
principal, spent one entire year in studying social con- 
ditions, attendance problems, the scholarship of secret- 
society members and non-members, the practices of the 
secret-society members, both within their meetings and 
in the general school activities, and, finally, in securing 
a complete roster of secret-society members. Publicity 
of these facts was thorough, use being made of the city 
papers whose influence had previously been secured 
through confidential facts submitted to them. Letters 
were also sent to all of the parents as often as facts and 
new conditions developed. When finally the board of 
education took action abolishing secret societies, it wa9 
received as a natural step. In fact, such action had 
been vigorously demanded by many prominent citizens, 
including the parents of club members. At the opening 
of school the following fall a referendum vote of the 
parents on the action of the board in abolishing secret 
societies resulted in 85 per cent unqualifiedly indorsing 
the action. Eleven per cent were non-committal, while 
only 4 per cent opposed it. The pupils accepted in good 
grace the inevitable and turned co-operatively to the 
problem of organizing new, purposeful, democratic clubs. 

These are some examples of the possibilities of genu- 
ine publicity in high school administration. Others will 
suggest themselves to those interested in making pro- 
gressive administration somewhat easier. 

The character and source of the publicity, of course, 
have much to do with its effect not only on the com- 
munity but on the pupils as well. 

First, and probably most important, publicity must 
be real and natural, not forced. 

Second, it must be based upon worthy school activi- 
ties. No one would care to have his school rated wholly 



312 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

on the number of formal parties and dinner-dances given 
by the exclusive clubs in the school. If publicity is 
given to worthy activities these will come to the front 
with remarkable swiftness. They may even crowd out the 
desire to maintain exclusive club activities in the school. 

Third, publicity should emphasize the various activi- 
ties of a well-organized modern high school. This means 
that every worth-while activity will be treated in the 
light of its relation to other activities and to the school 
as a whole. It presages a well-balanced programme of 
school activities. 

Fourth, publicity should emphasize facts of actual 
teaching experiences and results. The organization of a 
Better English Week is a splendid example of this type 
of publicity. Another instance of this type is the real 
school exhibit or the evening session of day-school classes 
when the parents are invited to be present. 

Fifth, the most effective publicity grows out of the 
things pupils do themselves. They are intensely in- 
terested in the publicity of their activities, much more 
so than in the more impersonal things about the school. 
As has been said before, pupils are about the best source 
available for advertisement purposes. They should be 
taken more into the programme of affairs and be given 
as great opportunity as possible to participate in the 
organization and execution of student activities and in 
the conduct of classroom exercises. 

Although no generally accepted programme of pub- 
licity has been developed in actual practice, it is quite 
possible to see forcing itself to the front the aim empha- 
sized in this chapter, namely, that of creating interest 
and faith in the work of the school on the part of pupils 
and parents. Specific examples of attempts along cer- 
tain lines to accomplish this aim are extremely valuable. 



HIGH SCHOOL PUBLICITY 313 

One of the outstanding examples of the co-operation 
of the parents with the school, growing out of active 
publicity of the school's efforts, is found in the Frank- 
ford, Philadelphia, High School. There the fathers have 
organized a fathers' association which has a member- 
ship of 2,000. The meetings are held at the high school 
once each month, with an average attendance of 800. 
The organization works through committees which 
outline the work for the year. The folder issued by 
the organization in 191 7 shows the enthusiastic sup- 
port given the school in its work. "Last year," says 
the folder, "we seconded the efforts of the faculty in 
developing a fine spirit of intellectual endeavor by 
awarding prizes to honor students and to members of 
debating teams. We gave musical instruction to 265 
boys and girls of the high school, supporting entirely the 
orchestra, the boys' glee club, the boys' mandolin club, 
the girls' chorus, the girls' string club, the quartet. We 
provided coaching and equipment for the athletic activi- 
ties of the school in which over 700 students participated. 
We had nine enthusiastic meetings, with a total atten- 
dance of from 7,000 to 8,000 men. There was for every 
man attending inspiration and enjoyment." Such an 
organization of parents must result in the promotion of 
the finest type of school and community spirit. Some 
form of parent or parent- teacher organization is found 
in many high schools. 

Another type of publicity found in many schools, but 
not yet common enough, is that which endeavors to 
create interest on the part of the pupils about to enter, 
and their parents. Many variations are found in the 
organization of this work. The traditional activity of 
inviting pupils, together with their parents, to the build- 
ing is common, but plans which are out of the ordinary 



314 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

are being carried out in some cities. In the Rockford, 
111., high school, for example, the idea of the "big 
brother'' and "big sister" in helping the incoming pupils 
to make adjustments is being developed. The pupils 
from the grade schools come in small groups to the high 
school and spend a day in company with an older pupil, 
who acquaints his proteges with the "ins and outs" of 
the school. In other schools boys' and girls' clubs, or 
the student council, take charge of the pupils, while in 
still others special programmes of interest are prepared 
for them and their parents. 

Probably the most elaborate scheme along this line 
was worked out in Pittsburgh a few years ago. A hand- 
book on the Pittsburgh high schools was issued and dis- 
tributed to the pupils of the 7th and 8th grades. Be- 
fore it was printed these pupils were invited to a can- 
tata rendered by the pupils of the high schools in the 
Carnegie Music Hall, and a reserved seat was given to 
each pupil, teacher, and principal. Between acts the 
cheer leader taught them the high school yells and in- 
vited them to the high school baseball game the next 
day. At the game these pupils were assembled back of 
the team and a group picture was taken. This picture 
was used in the handbook later distributed among the 
pupils. In essays written by the pupils the following 
year on "Why I Entered High School," many give credit 
to this handbook. No doubt they meant in reality the 
whole programme which culminated in the issuance of 
the handbook. 

As long as possible the high school should arrange for 
these personal contacts with the incoming pupils, but in 
the larger school systems it is sometimes necessary to 
rely upon literature issued by the high schools and han- 
dled by the elementary school principal. The hand- 



HIGH SCHOOL PUBLICITY 315 

book issued by the Chicago board of education in Janu- 
ary, 1 919, contains much valuable information for the 
prospective pupil and his parents. The first page is a 
pointed answer to the question "What does the Future 
Hold for an Eighth Grade Graduate ? " The second page 
states succinctly what the high school offers. Many 
school systems prepare these handbooks or leaflets, but 
they deserve even more attention than has been given 
theim 

A school manual can also be of great service, if it is 
properly prepared. Many schools are issuing manuals 
which describe the organization of the school and offer 
valuable suggestions as to curriculums of study and 
courses. To be of greatest service to the parents, a 
manual should give in detail the administration and 
social organization of the school. It should also give 
in detail the curriculum organization and the purposes 
each curriculum is designed to serve. It should contain 
much material descriptive of the courses of study offered 
in each curriculum and the aims underlying them. It 
is asking too much of parents to choose or assist in the 
choice of studies for the incoming pupils merely upon 
the basis of the names of the courses. A manual, such 
as described here, will likewise be of great help to the 
faculty not only through its preparation, but in giving 
them a better conception of the scope and purpose of 
the many activities of the present-day secondary school. 

The co-operation of the school in community projects 
is a most important source of publicity. This is often 
the source of the finest type of school and community 
spirit. During the war many schools co-operated in 
Red Cross work and war work activities, and as a result 
won the sincere admiration of the most prominent 
citizens of the community. Incidentally, the teachers 



316 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

learned that real projects for teaching purposes can be 
found in the community life about them. A description 
of the Greek games in connection with Red Cross inter- 
ests given by the Central High School of St. Louis in 
Forest Park shows some of the possibilities of commu- 
nity school projects. "It was a tremendous job," says 
Principal Curtis, "but it brought wonderful results of 
co-operation and co-ordination in the school. It has 
made a spirit of solidarity such as we have never had 
before. As a result of this success we are to arrange 
for next spring a similar but somewhat different affair. 
In connection with the Greek games, each girl paid for 
her own costume, and the majority of the five hundred 
costumes were made at the school. The art depart- 
ment designed and made the properties, and designed 
the color scheme for the dresses. The manual- training 
department contributed much work on the manufacture 
of properties. The study of Greek history and mythol- 
ogy was stimulated. A fine spirit of co-operation was 
engendered among the girls of the school, and, as a 
result of their training, they secured a very unusual 
degree of skill and grace. From all sides we have 
learned that this was the most artistic performance of 
its kind given in St. Louis in many a day." 

Three other means of securing the right kind of pub- 
licity should be emphasized, not that they exhaust, by 
any means, the possibilities, but they should be empha- 
sized more than is commonly the practice. 

First, the principal, in so far as his duties will permit, 
should become a man of affairs in the community. He 
should be a member of and attend the meetings of com- 
mercial and civic organizations, and cultivate acquain- 
tance with the business men of the city. The more the 
principal can make himself felt as a business man, the 



HIGH SCHOOL PUBLICITY 317 

greater confidence will the efficient men of the city have 
in him. It means much to the school for the principal 
to be chairman of a boys' work committee of the Young 
Men's Christian Association or the boys' committee of 
the Rotary Club. 

Second, greater advantage should be taken of the 
school exhibit. Too often this is a more or less matter- 
of-fact display of the work of the year. It should be 
much more than this. The school exhibit can be made 
the school's strongest drawing card to get the parents 
to the building. In the preparation of the exhibit the 
work of such departments as industrial arts, mechanical 
drawing, arts and crafts should be prepared carefully 
and with the view of showing the results accomplished. 
But what of the work in history, mathematics, or Latin ? 
Is there no way to prepare for the proper exhibition of 
the activities of these classes? By careful preparation 
and specific outline of the work to be done on the eve- 
ning of the exhibit the work of these classes can be 
shown to great advantage by running a part of the 
school's daily schedule of classes. Programmes of en- 
tertainment in the auditorium always make a hit with 
the public. Another feature that elicits immediate in- 
terest is the living exhibit. Boys at work in the shops, 
girls doing projects in the school kitchen, contests in 
typewriting, games in the gymnasium, and sewing con- 
tests not only emphasize the many activities of the 
modern school but arouse keen interest. 

Third, there is some reason to believe that the school 
will finally use the motion picture as a means of pub- 
licity. A few attempts are being made through the use 
of slides to advertise evening schools or other similar 
activities. One city made use of the theatres to con- 
vince the public that it needed a bond issue to modern- 



318 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

ize school buildings, but this was done by the use of 
slides and by taking advantage in a way of the people 
who went to see real motion pictures. With the instal- 
lation of motion-picture machines in most of the more 
modern schools, it remains now to film the school's ac- 
tivities, games, contests, classroom exercises, when we 
shall have one of the most inspiring sources of building 
up school spirit yet found. 

Many other means of securing publicity are used, 
each with its many variations. The city paper, the 
school paper, dramatic productions, debating activities, 
band, orchestra, athletics, student manual or code of 
ethics, go-to-school campaigns, vocational guidance, and 
placement bureaus are among those most commonly 
mentioned. 

By way of summary, there is need of high school pub- 
licity to create a greater interest in the work of the 
school on the part both of the parents and pupils. Cer- 
tain fundamental points in securing the right kind of 
publicity should be kept in mind. 

(a) Publicity must be a natural outgrowth of the 
school's activities. 

(b) It must be based upon worthy school activities 
and should grow out of the activities of the pupils in so 
far as possible. 

(c) It should be used to emphasize the classroom ac- 
tivities of the school, as well as the more catchy or sen- 
sational features of the modern high school. 

(d) It must seek for the real advancement of the best 
interests of the school. 



experimentalise: in secondary 
education 

Measuring the work of the school has become preva- 
lent, and it may be said that it is row the fashion. 
Standard tests and scales have been devised to standard- 
ize school work, to make possible accurate statements 
and comparisons, and to draw scientific conclusions. 
The statistical method has been treated by Thorndike 
and Strayer, Ayres, Rugg, and others very exhaustively. 
Strayer and Norsworthy, King, Monroe, Kelly, Bowley, 
and others have recently made the statistical method 
readable and of use to the rank and file of teachers by 
treating the subject in a more or less elementary man- 
ner. In discussing those essential parts or factors of the 
statistical method which the layman must use in the 
experimental study of the work of his school they have 
taken a very necessary step in making the use of stand- 
ard tests and scales general. 

The purpose of this chapter is not to attempt a re- 
statement of the elements of the statistical method, ex- 
cept to point out the few essential things about which 
the administrator or teacher untrained in such work 
must know, but rather to emphasize the need of an 
experimental attitude, to indicate some of the problems 
which should be studied experimentally, and the need 
of popular presentation of the results of experimental 
studies. 

The report of the Cleveland Survey on Measuring the 
Work of the Public Schools is made with the use of but 
few technical terms in statistical method. The use of 
the median appears first in this report on page 97. On 

319 



320 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

page 98 some dozen lines in small type explain the 
meaning and use of the term as contrasted with the 
arithmetical mean. Mean deviation appears first in 
the report on page 133, and is not explained until page 
262 is reached, when another dozen lines in small type 
are found. The preparation of this report was not so 
much dependent upon the technical mathematics of sta- 
tistical method, although more of it was used than 
appears in the report, as the ability to sense the work 
that should be measured, the knowledge of the proper 
or significant preparation of tables to give the facts a 
meaning, and the popular presentation of those facts. 
The facts of this report are likewise true of many of the 
studies that are being made every day. The lack of an 
intimate knowledge of the many technical phases of 
statistics need not keep a school administrator from 
measuring the work of his system. If he will acquaint 
himself with the few essential things, such as the me- 
dian, mean deviation, scoring, and preparation of tables, 
he can handle practically all of the non- technical prob- 
lems of experimental education. 

Immediately, however, it should be stated that there 
are many fields of scientific investigation which necessi- 
tate the services of an expert. But the expert in a sys- 
tem cannot measure all of the school's practices. Even 
in systems with Bureaus of Research there are many 
non-technical problems which should properly fall to 
the head of the school or the faculty. It is within the 
scope of this chapter to set some of these problems. 

The time has passed when one needs to defend the 
statistical method and an experimental attitude toward 
the work of the school. The time is here to quicken the 
response of administrators to this work. An experi- 
mental attitude tends to make a science of our profes- 



SECONDARY EDUCATION 321 

sion and to enlarge the service of the school to the com- 
munity. We are largely controlled in school admin- 
istration by opinionated educational practice. Every 
curriculum of study in our secondary schools is full of 
opinion. It was written as a compromise between fac- 
tions in the faculty, or between the faculty and the prin- 
cipal himself. In the programme of studies of the high 
school there is usually a statement limiting the number 
of hours of work which a pupil may carry, but no one 
knows whether this i9 the limit that should be set. The 
point is that administration is often without the facts, 
and hence is unscientific and a sort of will-o'-the-wisp 
affair. Opinionated administration not only prevents 
standards in the school system, but gives the public 
confidence to criticise the work of the school. 

Doctor Leonard P. Ayres, Division of Education, 
Russell Sage Foundation, in the Seventeenth Year Book 
of the National Society for the Study of Education ex- 
presses clearly the emphasis that should be placed upon 
the scientific method: k 

"Science in education," he says, "is not a body of 
information, but a method, and its object is to find out 
and to learn how. By its aid education is becoming a 
profession. Courses of study are being adapted to the 
needs of children; teaching effort and supervisory con- 
trol are becoming more efficient. . . . Knowledge is 
replacing opinion, and evidence is supplanting guess- 
work in education, as in every other field of human 
activity. . . . The future depends upon the skill, the 
wisdom, and the sagacity of the school men and women 
of America. It is well that they should set about the 
task of enlarging, perfecting, and carrying forward the 
scientific movement in education, for the Great War has 
marked the end of the age of haphazard, and the devel- 



322 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

opments of coming years will show that this is true in 
education as in every other organized field of human 
endeavor. " 

The war has greatly emphasized the importance of 
the public schools in a democracy, but it placed our 
educational theories and practices in the balance. It 
brought into question content of courses, the efficiency 
of vocational programmes, physical fitness, the teaching 
of citizenship, the holding power of the school — in 
short, the ultimate success of the public school in the 
largest sense. With emphasis focussed upon these 
points, the war has demonstrated that the school must 
henceforth be organized and administered upon a scien- 
tific basis. Discontent can best be quieted by measured 
results, and our proposed reconstruction must have a 
basis in fact and not opinion. 

In the field of secondary education we are entering 
upon a period of reorganization. The junior high school 
is an established fact, and the six-three-three plan is 
rapidly supplanting the old traditional eight-four plan. 
This reorganization is not only a fertile field for the 
scientific method, but one that must be entered. Just 
what in point of actual fact does the junior high school 
do for society that was not done before? In what re- 
spects does it increase the efficiency of the school sys- 
tem ? Can the work done by the regular four-year high 
school be done better by reorganizing secondary educa- 
tion? Just what are the facts in regard to the holding 
power of the junior-senior high school arrangement? 
In matters of this kind shall we continue to be domi- 
nated merely by our convictions, and shall we continue 
to dominate public opinion by the same means, or shall 
we base our educational practice and theory upon 
facts? Shall we longer accept an opinionated profes- 



SECONDARY EDUCATION 323 

sion, or shall we help make it a science by insisting upon 
the application of the yard-stick ? 

What fields or practices may be surveyed by the ad- 
ministrator who is not a skilled statistician or measure- 
ment expert, but who knows how to control the factors 
involved, arrange his facts properly, and interpret them ? 
A few may be suggested, but other opportunities and 
problems will be recognized by those who have the ex- 
perimental attitude. The matter of first importance is 
to secure the attitude. 

First, there is the whole field of curriculum building. 
It should no longer be a scissors-and-paste process to 
build the curriculums for the school. The school's cur- 
riculum policy should grow out of a study of the facts 
of pupil population, a study of the community, the 
trades and professions and the number entering them. 
After determining upon the curriculums to be offered, 
who knows for a certainty what subjects should go into 
them? Who knows in what year the subjects should 
come? What so-called high school subjects should go 
down into the junior high school ? 

In administering the school's curriculums, how may 
we determine upon the amount of work a pupil should 
carry from semester to semester? Who knows how 
many hours of work are best for the pupil? Should 
he carry three, four, or five subjects each semester? 
Should not some curriculums properly require a longer 
time for completion than others ? 

One of the above questions implies the relation be- 
tween the curriculum and the end or object for which it 
was set up. How may one know whether the curricu- 
lum concerned is the best preparation for the work the 
pupil has in mind? In this same connection how may 
one determine whether that curriculum is fulfilling its 



324 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

purpose? Is there any correlation between the cur- 
riculum followed and the trade or profession entered by 
the pupil ? 

Second, there is the field of content of courses and 
elimination of waste in subject-matter. Undoubtedly, 
this field will remain one of controversy until experi- 
mental education proves something. It is a serious 
matter to have a pupil spend one year in commercial 
arithmetic, for example, if sufficient proficiency can be 
gained in one semester. Especially is this important 
when we are entering upon the organization of junior 
high school courses. We are constantly hearing that 
the subject-matter and treatment of it should be differ- 
ent in the junior high school from that in the senior 
high school. In what respects should it differ ? And if 
it should differ, how are we to determine upon this new 
organization and treatment? 

Hope lies in experimental education. Ay res has 
shown by experiment, for example, how we might save 
time and thus eliminate waste in spelling. This can be 
done in other subjects. In fact, minimal essentials in 
high school subjects are being determined by experiment. 

These two fields may seem overwhelmingly large, but 
if constructive work is done in them, at present it must 
be done in most school systems by or under the leader- 
ship of the secondary-school administrator. The effi- 
ciency expert, if the system has ©ne, is often too busy 
giving tests in the elementary schools. If the average 
administrator cannot conduct large control experiments 
in these fields he can at least make a beginning. The 
attitude is worth while. 

A third field covers the whole range of teachers' 
marks, pupil progress, promotions, failures, eliminations, 
repeaters, and allied topics. A study of these topics 



SECONDARY EDUCATION 325 

may result in marked changes in methods of instruction 
and in administration. 

In one high school a study was made, for example, of 
fifty-seven pupils who failed of promotion in beginning 
German. These pupils were followed through their 
course in school until they either made their credit in 
German or dropped out. In this particular school a 
foreign language was required for graduation, and due 
to certain local conditions the pupils who began German 
repeated it if they failed of promotion. The second 
semester revealed some astonishing facts. Of the fifty- 
seven who had failed the previous semester, all would 
have been repeaters for the first time had they remained 
in school. Fourteen had withdrawn, and of the forty- 
three who remained only five made their credits. In 
the third semester, of the thirty-eight only nineteen 
were in school, and of these nineteen, three made their 
credits. At the end of the fourth semester, one of the 
original fifty-seven was still in school, and he made his 
credit. There had been a total of nine credits made in 
German by those fifty-seven pupils in four semesters, 
and all but one had withdrawn. This is a concrete ex- 
ample of what happened in one school. It is conceded 
that failure is conducive to elimination, but just what 
is happening in any particular school ? A study of this 
kind will convince a faculty or the public that a better 
adjustment of the work to the pupil would be a highly 
profitable piece of social work. 

From a slightly different angle the administrator may 
secure a bird's-eye view of this problem of failures and 
elimination. It would be interesting and also profit- 
able to follow the pupils who entered the first year of 
the school through the school until they had either with- 
drawn or graduated. Or, again, he may secure this 



326 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

information by figuring the per cent of promotions in 
the classes, using the number enrolled at the beginning 
as the base, provided he follows this up with a study of 
the repeaters. This process will reveal a tremendous 
waste. It should be understood that to secure these 
data and not follow them up corresponds to the doctor 
who diagnoses a case but gives no medicine. 

There should be an age-grade table prepared each 
semester, and this should be followed up by making a 
definite study especially of the retarded boys. An age- 
grade table of the secondary school reveals a tre- 
mendous amount of retardation among boys in the 9th 
and 10th grades. During the nth and 12th grades 
there is scarcely more retardation among boys than girls. 
These facts make it very apparent that there is urgent 
need of better adaptation of work to boys, and proba- 
bly there should be provided some practical short 
courses which certain boys might well be encouraged to 
take. 

Supplementing the age-grade table and a general 
study of failures and elimination, it will be found profit- 
able to compare the per cent of failures by grades made 
by boys with that made by girls in the various subjects 
of the curriculum. This comparison will add new em- 
phasis to the need of adjusting the curriculums of study 
to the pupils. 

Such a study in one large high school is given in 
Tables I, II, and III. 

With the advent of weighted credit schemes, the im- 
portance of studying teachers' marks has been greatly 
emphasized. Undoubtedly, there is something wrong 
with our yard-stick when two teachers of the same sub- 
ject, after marking 500 to 1,000 pupils, will vary greatly 
in their distribution of marks. It is not an exaggeration 



SECONDARY EDUCATION 



327 



TABLE I 

A COMPARISON OF THE PER CENT OF FAILURES OF BOYS AND GIRLS 
IN THE VARIOUS SUBJECTS OFFERED IN THE SCHOOL 



SUBJECT 



PER CENT OF 
BOYS FAILING 



PER CENT OF 
GIRLS FAILING 



Mathematics 

Latin 

German 

English 

Commercial 

Science 

History 

Industrial and household arts 



23 

3i 

23 

10 

10 

8 

4 

5 



23 
12 

5 
4 
7 
3 
2 




TABLE II 

A COMPARISON OF THE FAILURES OF BOYS AND GIRLS IN FIRST-YEAR 

SUBJECTS 



SUBJECT 



PER CENT OF 
BOYS FAILING 



PER CENT OF 
GIRLS FAILING 



Mathematics 

Latin 

German 

English 

Commercial 

Science 

History 

Industrial and household arts 



3i 
4i 
35 
12 
Not offered 
11 
8 
10 



24 
17 

3 

5 
Not offered 

3 
6 




to say that in the absence of a policy on this point, one 
teacher may fail three times as many pupils as another 
teacher in the same department, or one may give five 
times as many marks of 90 per cent or above as the 
other. In one school the teachers' marks were charted 
semester by semester, and after each teacher had marked 
approximately 700 pupils in a period of two and one- 



328 



HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 



TABLE III 

A COMPARISON OF THE FAILURES OF BOYS AND GIRLS IN SECOND, 
THIRD, AND FOURTH YEAR SUBJECTS 



SUBJECT 

Mathematics 

Latin 

German 

English 

Commercial 

Science 

History 

Industrial and household arts 



PER CENT OF 
BOYS FAILING 



PER CENT OF 
GIRLS FAILING 



II 

21 
13 

8 
10 

5 
2 
2 



23 
10 
10 
2 
7 
3 
o 
o 



half years certain facts were clearly evident. The exact 
records which follow of two teachers of the same Eng- 
lish department are typical. 




70-74 75-79 80-84 85-89 



90-94 95-100 



Teacher A. Uniformly a high marker. Passing mark 75%. 



SECONDARY EDUCATION 



329 



40j{ 




.OW65 65-69 70-74 75-79 80-84 85-89 90-94 95-1 

Teacher B. Uniformly a low marker. Passing mark 75% 



It is an interesting experiment to have the faculty 
mark an examination paper, say in commercial arithme- 
tic and in English composition. In one school, after 
the faculty had been given identical instructions and 
duplicate copies of the papers to be marked, it was 
found that there was a variation of 40 per cent in mark- 
ing an arithmetic paper, and 30 per cent in marking 
a composition. Some teachers would have failed the 
pupils in question, while others would have given them 
excess credit under some weighted credit schemes. The 
marks given by twenty-nine members of one faculty 
in marking an arithmetic paper follows in graphical 
form on page 330. 

Unquestionably such facts are duplicated in many 
schools, and thus the real purposes of a weighted credit 
scheme may be defeated. Under such conditions of 
marking pupils a weighted credit scheme exaggerates 



330 



HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 



eo.n 


f- 


"'j::: — ----- — XT- ■-, 


:t:::::::::x::::::::::::::::::x:: 


85 % 


4---- 

±::: 




J_ _ Tj" ~ 




---'+>■$- + - 


_ . {""if" 


BOJ 


x::: 


i T :-±.:..-.:..-i.--_ 


---j- Tl___]J__ 


























Z 75K 


-1 


r : ;+±----4:"S-i : -:-$--;|S— !| 


:+:|:5""::::::::::|::::::g: 


> 
°70? 


-U— - 




jxfli] 1 \\ \y\ 1 1 m 






x:x x:::::x:::±:::::Xix::r ::::E 




S 


-X-- - 




U_ - 






























































:::±:::::::::::±:::i:x::::: - :"+q 






+--- 


:::±3£:::±:::±:::!$:" T"Xr 


1 U-_ 


















































50^ 






































45* 


< r . 


::±t±:: :::::::::: :±::±±::::x:::: 


. , ,1 ,,..., ,tC 



»0 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 
NUMBER OF CASES 



The passing mark is 75%. 



the importance of choosing "snap" courses and easy 
teachers. It becomes a difficult matter to get pupils 
into the classes of some teachers, and likewise difficult 
to keep them out of those of others. A study of marks 
should be followed by a constructive attempt to adjust 
these problems. A system of marking in which the 
marks represent distinguishable steps of merit should 
follow such studies, as should also a schematic distribu- 
tion of marks that will make for greater uniformity 
among teachers. 

A study related to all of these deals with the progress 
through the school of particular pupil groups, organized 
on the basis of ability. Especially is this important 
with the organization of the junior high school. Defi- 
nite provision in all possible cases will be made for dif- 
ferences in ability in the junior high school, and the 
progress of each group should be studied carefully, not 



SECONDARY EDUCATION 331 

only in that school, but also in the senior high school. 
In one large city system a special class is organized in one 
of the junior high schools. This class is prepared for the 
high school one full semester before the regular pupils. 
A comparative study of pupil groups might throw fur- 
ther light on the problem of the classification of pupils. 

A fourth field has to do with the use of standard tests 
and scales. As rapidly as these are developed they 
should be used in the administration of the school. 
With the definite organization of the junior high school, 
many of these tests and scales can be used in the scien- 
tific building of the programme of studies, particularly 
in determining curriculums, subject-matter, and time 
allotment. At the present time we are in the midst of 
a discussion as to the time element and treatment of 
subject material in junior high school mathematics. 
Again, there is much room for further experimentation 
in the organization and administration of commercial, 
household arts, and industrial branches in the junior 
high school. These are two outstanding examples of 
the urgent need of science in education, and it is to be 
hoped that before the organization of the junior high 
school becomes more or less traditional, a constructive 
attempt will be made to formulate principles based 
upon evidence rather than debate. 

Already many tests and scales are available for use 
in secondary schools. There are now some eighty-four 
standardized tests for use in the elementary school, 
many of which can be used profitably in the junior high 
school. Many of them can become the basis of pro- 
motion to the junior high school and the special classi- 
fication of junior high school pupils. To some extent 
they may become the basis of promotion to the senior 
high school. There are about twenty-five standardized 



332 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

tests for use in the secondary school. Algebra, drawing, 
foreign languages, geometry, history, physical education, 
and physics are included in the list of subjects. 1 There 
is reason to hope that this list will be extended and 
the existing tests further refined. 

Experimentation in algebra has resulted in some ex- 
cellent tests. Rugg and Clark have developed a series of 
sixteen tests covering ninth-year work in algeb>ra. Pro- 
fessor Thomas H. Briggs is developing a series of stand- 
ardized compositions for use in all grades, from ninth to 
twelfth. In this work an effort is being made to set 
limits which may reasonably represent the range by 
grades in theme writing. Undoubtedly this marks the 
beginning of an attempt to agree upon limits which shall 
be accepted as the basis of progress through school. It 
is a matter of more than passing interest that in some 
schools the standard of attainment for promotion from 
nth-grade composition to that of the 12th grade is 
not as high as that of promotion in other schools from 
the oth to 10th grade. Briggs, in developing his scale, 
discovered that the theme rated as the poorest that 
could be accepted in i2th-grade work in one school was 
sometimes not as good as the theme rated poorest that 
could be accepted in 9th-grade work in another school. 
In other words, it was apparent that no one knew 
exactly what should be required of a 9th, 10th, or nth 
year pupil in composition, and that as among schools 
there were no progressive standards of attainment. 
When the i2th-grade themes which had been rated best 
by the English teachers of the schools sending them in 
were rated according to a scale, it was found that they 
ranged in merit from scarcely good enough to be con- 

1 Chap. VII, Seventeeth Year Book, by Monroe; also chap. XIII, 
Seventeenth Year Book, by Bryner. 



SECONDARY EDUCATION 333 

sidered acceptable as 9th-grade themes to a point on the 
scale comparable with university work. 

This one piece of work demonstrates clearly and 
forcibly the fact that standardized tests and scales are 
needed as a means of testing the accomplishment of 
pupils and rating them more justly. Much of the lack 
of standards of attainment and progress toward progres- 
sive standards is due to the inability of teachers to 
measure merit without some means of checking their 
judgment. This work in English composition opens up 
a new field for experiment in secondary education. It 
reveals the possible need of similar experimental work 
in other branches of study. 

The use of tests and scales relates closely to the effi- 
ciency of classroom methods. Much progress has been 
made in analyzing the elements entering into efficiency 
in teaching and in developing uniform rating schemes. 
The Boyce score card, or a variation of it, represents 
progress in rating teacher efficiency, but the difficulty in 
administering such rating schemes is that they call 
largely for opinion on the part of the supervisor. There 
is room for great variation in marking teachers even 
with such schemes. One supervisor may rate a teacher 
high with such a scale, while another may rate her low. 
It then resolves itself into a debate as to whose judg- 
ment is better, and the teacher concludes, rightly, that 
such rating schemes are just so much added "red tape." 
In many instances the thing or things that make a 
teacher stand out in her work lie beyond the scope of a 
scale. 

It should not be concluded that this is an argument 
against developing scales for rating teachers. Undoubt- 
edly there should be such scales, but as rapidly as pos- 
sible the rating should be based upon elements which 



334 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

can be measured. It probably will never be possible to 
remove the personal element in rating teachers, but 
there is evidence to believe that facts of classroom work 
may supplant the present necessity of basing efficiency 
upon personal opinion. 

In the future it will be perfectly proper to rate the 
teacher in terms of results. In a certain school system 
in Massachusetts the superintendent had for some time 
questioned the efficiency of the penmanship supervisor, 
but he did not have definite data. It was largely a 
matter of guess. He tested all the grades by use of the 
Thorndike scale and found that the results confirmed his 
opinion. He called in the supervisor and asked that 
there be some definite improvement the following year. 
With the proper use of the scale the supervisor did show 
excellent results and he still retains his position. The 
relative amount of teacher activity in conducting the 
class is no longer a matter of opinion. The question as 
a measure of efficiency has been admirably handled by 
Doctor Romiett Stevens. The general type of recita- 
tion is no longer a question for debate. These points 
represent some of the items of measuring teaching effi- 
ciency in which facts may be substituted for opinion. 
Others will suggest themselves. 

Finally, the cost of education should be made the sub- 
ject of scientific investigation. We should know what 
it costs the community to secure the results which we 
claim for the school. This phase of investigation has 
been overworked in view of the use made of it in alter- 
ing the practices of the administration. We should not 
forget that we know at the end of the year how much it 
costs to run the system. Relatively it is unimportant 
to know simply that one thousand hours of instruction in 
the high school cost so many dollars. It is highly im- 



SECONDARY EDUCATION 335 

portant to know the relative amounts spent in the 
grades and high school for instruction and all other 
expenses combined. We should not lose sight of the 
fact that cost of education should be confined largely to 
a comparative study of the items of expense in the sys- 
tem. Up to the present time cost of instruction has 
been the principal cost item studied in secondary educa- 
tion, but a study of cost should include every item of 
expenditure. The public is interested in totals. The 
administrator should, of course, know the per pupil cost, 
and this knowledge should be utilized in equalizing 
great discrepancies in securing equivalent results in the 
system. Further than this, cost of instruction and cost 
of education, except in so far as total cost is concerned, 
mean little and probably will be emphasized much less 
in the future. Rather, cost should include scientific 
budget making and an adjustment of expenditures as 
among the items included. 

The fields mentioned for investigation in this chapter 
are merely suggestive, the important point being that 
experiment in the administration and supervision of the 
school should be encouraged in every possible way. 
Within these fields there are opportunities without end 
for experimentation. These will suggest themselves to 
those who have the experimental attitude. 

Those not familiar with the statistical method will 
experience difficulty in getting the data collected ar- 
ranged intelligibly. It is highly important that they 
understand the significance of arranging the material in 
such manner as to make it possible to interpret results. 
Scoring and tabulating often present real difficulties. 
Assistance, however, can be secured of many schools of 
education, and frequently the technical part of the 
work can be turned over to an expert. 



336 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

Much of the success of experiment in education de- 
pends on the character of a report. Reports based 
upon statistical work must be simple and non-technical 
in character, and be designed to carry weight without 
extensive explanation. In other words, until the teach- 
ing profession generally becomes familiar with the tech- 
nical phases of measurement, the expert and the gen- 
eral administrator must popularize the statistical method 
in education through simplicity and the constant use of 
the results with the teaching force and the community. 



NEW CONCEPTION OF THE PRINCIPALSHIP 

There is an indefiniteness about the duties of the high 
school principal that is not equalled elsewhere in our 
public-school system. To be sure, the clerical phases of 
high school administration are well understood, as a 
matter of necessity, but the higher and more vital phases 
of the principal's duties are, as yet, indefinitely formu- 
lated. This indefiniteness is a reassuring sign that we 
are entering upon a new era in high school administra- 
tion. It is undoubtedly an indication that we are leav- 
ing behind that conception of the high school principal- 
ship that finds its highest expression in such clerical 
duties as adjusting pupils' programmes, in receiving and 
passing upon all excuses for absence, in the more or less 
useless shuffling of cards and writing of names, in answer- 
ing the telephone and the million relatively unimportant 
questions arising from day to day, and finally in check- 
ing up and signing the janitors' pay-roll. In fact, in 
our better schools, the teachers are taking exception to 
the principal who spends his time in clerical work, and 
are complaining against the lack of educational leader- 
ship in the faculty. On the other hand, there are still 
some teachers and principals, too, who regard the work 
of the principal as largely clerical. They look upon 
administration as something mechanical, a sort of rou- 
tine of devices, a manipulation of filing schemes, a 
shuffling of cards. 

Many principals need conversion on this point. They 
cannot stand it to be removed from the personal contact 
with pupils, arising from the adjustment of the size of 

337 



338 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

classes, changes in pupils' programmes, or granting per- 
mission for early dismissal on account of work. They 
look to these necessary but comparatively trivial mat- 
ters to establish their authority in the school. They 
think they must be seen in action in these mere skir- 
mishes in administration. What they need is the ability 
to visualize a General Foch. It is not a sufficient de- 
fense to say that these things bring the principal into 
actual contact with the pupils. There are other oppor- 
tunities of a more vital kind that enable him to display 
real leadership. 

In any discussion of the principalship it must be 
understood that efficiency in handling the clerical work 
of the office is a matter of first importance and one that 
cannot be neglected. The system of records and re- 
ports must be complete and accurate. The method of 
reporting and checking absence and tardiness must be 
simple and yet effective. The making of the schedule 
of recitations, adjustment of sizes of classes, necessary 
changes in teachers' and pupils' programmes, issuing 
work permits, and the like, should be systematized until 
these things take up the minimum amount of time. 

It is a matter of highest importance that the work of 
opening school be completed quickly. In this respect 
there is a wide difference among schools. In some 
schools it takes two or three weeks to get down to real 
classroom work; in others, class work of a vital kind is 
begun on the second or third day. The writer person- 
ally knows of a school in which pupils reported for 
enrolment in classes on Monday, the opening day, and 
then were told not to return until Friday. On Friday 
ten-minute periods were run and work did not begin 
until the middle of the second week. In another school 
some classes have been known to run for six weeks, with 



NEW CONCEPTION OF THE PRINCIPALSHIP 339 

an enrolment of fifty or sixty, because the principal in- 
sisted that he alone should make all adjustments in 
pupils' programmes. In many individual instances 
these adjustments meant no more than assigning the 
pupils to a different study period. Contrast this type 
of organization with one that has the school actually 
under way on Tuesday of the first week, with pupils 
preparing lessons in earnest for the next day's work. 
There is real technic in planning for the opening day 
of school and in getting the machinery under way 
promptly. The principal should make a study of these 
purely organization problems and refine his office meth- 
ods until the efficiency, or standard of efficiency, is 
fairly comparable with that of the best-organized offices 
in the commercial world. This calls for adequate cleri- 
cal help, a high degree of division of labor, and a wise 
and judicious assignment of duties to members of the 
faculty who are especially qualified for the particular 
service to be rendered. 

Important as this phase of administration is, and as 
much attention as it warrants, there are higher and 
more spiritual sides which, when acted upon, will con- 
stitute the real duties of the high school principal. 

Doctor Charles Hughes Johnston, in addressing the 
North Central Association, March 23, 1917, expressed 
so clearly the trend in high school administration that 
his words are quoted in full. "The high school," he 
said, "is no longer an assemblage of many tutoring or 
teaching units or classrooms. It is an institution. It 
begins to have an institutional consciousness — even con- 
science. Pupil achievement, real public high school ed- 
ucation in a democracy, depends much upon proper 
school organization, administration, and supervision. 
Proper and skilful direction of such an institution is an 



340 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

essential means of providing the environment necessary 
for real success in secondary education." 

On the spiritual side he goes still deeper into the 
new conception of the high school principalship. i ' There 
is," he says, "an unfortunate distinction between ad- 
ministration and teaching. This distinction is based 
upon the view that administration is mechanical, a sort 
of routine use of devices and the employment of practi- 
cal temporary adjustments and the consumption of time 
in clerical occupation and more or less futile or tempo- 
rarily necessary pupil, teacher, and parent conferences; 
while real teaching is both more spiritual and more truly 
educational. . . . There is real technic in organizing 
and managing student activities, in creating an esprit 
de corps in the school, ... in making a system of 
educational guidance a real part of the school's every- 
day work, in making athletics democratic, moral, and 
educational. . . . School management in this higher 
and more spiritual sense implies technic, implies minimal 
standards of administration, implies peculiar profes- 
sional preparation and personal fitness of the adminis- 
trators, implies a high degree of co-operation of all the 
forces of the school." 

This is a significant statement of a constructive 
thinker. When we objectively formulate the spirit of 
these words, we shall pass from the mere standardiza- 
tion of the routine and clerical phases of the principal- 
ship to the refinement of the more vital means by which 
the modern high school fulfils its highest purposes in a 
democracy. 

In this higher professional sense there are two essen- 
tial factors which determine what may be called the 
spirit of the administration, and affect very materially 
the morale of the school. 



NEW CONCEPTION OF THE PRINCIPALSHIP 341 

The first of these has to do with the co-operation of 
the faculty (or the lack of it) in the solution of the insti- 
tutional problems of the school; the second with the 
attitude toward the social problems arising in the stu- 
dent body. There can, in the near future, be no dodg- 
ing of these two issues in high school administration. 
Accrediting agencies will, without doubt, enter upon 
this phase of standardizing our administrative practices. 

Is the school administered in such a way that the 
faculty can participate in the solution of administrative 
problems? Is the ability of this or that member of the 
faculty allowed to emerge, or is it being continually 
blocked? Are the teachers encouraged to discuss the 
problems of the school and offer suggestions ? Are they 
organized into committees to make it certain that they 
will contribute to the institutional consciousness of the 
school? Or is the administration of the type which 
makes it clear to teachers that they may occasionally be 
called upon to check the "a priori " conclusions of the 
principal, but that their main duty is to teach and take 
orders? Is the administration of that type which seeks 
for and results in the glorification of the head master? 
In a democracy there is a world of difference in these 
two suggested types. The one results in the democra- 
tization of the faculty that has always resented auto- 
cratic methods in administration; the other in a dead- 
ening of every spark of real interest in the institutional 
problems of the school. 

There is no better example of democracy and great- 
ness in administration to be found than that in Teachers 
College, Columbia University. Dean Russell has, from 
the beginning, organized his faculty on a co-operative 
basis. He has not only permitted but has encouraged 
the men on that faculty to bring their full genius to 



342 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

bear on the solution of the problems of the institution. 
More than this, he has encouraged growth in his faculty. 
Under this leadership the ability of the able teachers 
has emerged. To-day he has around him a group of 
enthusiastically loyal teachers who have national and 
international reputations. There are other institutions 
in this country with great men on their faculties, but 
somehow things are blocked, something gets in the way, 
and the institutions themselves, to say nothing of the 
educational world generally, do not reap full benefit of 
the latent ability of these great teachers. 

Some principals object to placing more than a very 
limited amount of responsibility on the members of the 
faculty. Of course, in any provision for co-operative 
effort, the principal remains the executive head of the 
school, but the question of authority need not arise 
even in the most extreme type of co-operation. In fact, 
the principal becomes the constructive leader and bears 
the same relationship to the faculty that the teacher 
does to the class. It is his business to bring to the 
highest possible point of development the individual 
members of his staff. 

With respect to the social problems of the student 
body, there is urgent need of cons true tiveness. Gen- 
erally speaking, we have not yet sensed the social prob- 
lems in our schools. There are high schools which, by 
virtue of internal conditions, send forth their graduates 
with a perverted notion of democracy and actually un- 
fitted to participate fully in a democracy. Witness 
schools with Greek-letter secret fraternities; with exclu- 
sive literary societies whose membership is restricted to 
the so-called socially elect; with clubs and cliques, no 
one of which serves any of the purposeful ends of secon- 
dary education, or helps in any way to unify the com- 



NEW CONCEPTION OF THE PRINCIPAL SHIP 343 

mon interests of the school. Witness schools in which 
the athletics are dominated by secret organizations or 
cliques, and unsportsmanlike practices are permitted to 
go unnoticed. Witness schools in which it is considered 
right and proper on the part of players on the teams to 
spend the school's money freely, and keep a goodly part 
of the equipment; in which it is considered fair to "get" 
a player on the opposing team, regardless of the man- 
ner in which it is done. 

Why do we have these social conditions in our schools ? 
No one will maintain that they sprang from a desire or 
latent tendency to do something wrong, or to interfere 
with the work of the school. Then why are social ten- 
dencies not utilized in a positive manner, and thus 
directed into worthy channels? 

Failure to sense the social problems results in a de- 
generation of the social activities of the pupils. It re- 
sults in a degeneration of societies that were originally 
good. It results in a multiplicity of organizations, few 
of which have clear-cut or justifiable reasons for exist- 
ence. It breeds secret societies and exclusive literary 
societies. On the other hand, a constructive social pro- 
gramme insists that each organization meet one or more 
of the worthy ends of secondary education. It insists 
upon organizing the activities of the school on a demo- 
cratic basis. Members will be chosen on the basis of 
merit and peculiar fitness and not upon the unjustifiable 
basis of those particular, indefinable, social attributes 
that meet the ready approval of secret-society members. 
Under such a programme there will be many things to 
unify the common interests of the school, and the activi- 
ties will be organized in such a way as to develop to the 
highest possible point the spirit of co-operative effort. 

Our general assembly periods could be utilized to a 



344 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

much greater extent than is common in furthering the 
social organization and unity of the school. This im- 
portant feature of high school organization is much 
neglected, or left to an accidental programme of events. 
In a certain large high school there is an assembly com- 
mittee composed of seven teachers who, in conjunction 
with the principal, outline the assembly work through- 
out the year. This is not done from week to week, but 
by semesters, with a definite purpose behind the work. 
It is impossible for any one who does not have a mes- 
sage to appear on the platform. During a recent semes- 
ter the assembly period was organized to teach patriot- 
ism, to further all patriotic movements, to encourage 
worthy school activities, and to provide high-class enter- 
tainment. Dramatics, public speaking, debating, class 
plays, student council, publications, athletics, and school 
clubs were among the activities encouraged. In all of 
these programmes the pupils were given a large part, 
and in many of them they had complete charge. A 
wise use of the assembly period will result in raising the 
whole social, moral, and aesthetic tone of the school. 

Faculty organization and the attitude toward social 
activities determine in a large degree the spirit of the 
administration and hence the soul of the institution. 
They are vital matters in the fulfilment of the highest 
purposes of public secondary schools. 

Coming now to certain other professional phases of 
administration, there are fields of endeavor in which 
minimal standards of administrative practice need to be 
set up. 

The first of these centres around the curriculum prob- 
lems of the school. A casual glance at the subjects 
offered in our secondary schools, the requirements for 
graduation, the specific curriculum constants, and the 



NEW CONCEPTION OF THE PRINCIPALSHIP 345 

number of elective courses will reveal clearly a state of 
chaos and the need of constructive thinking. Undoubt- 
edly, there should be greater agreement among us in 
regard to the administration of the subjects offered by 
the schools. In some schools there is an effort to organ- 
ize the subjects into a curriculum or curriculums, to 
meet certain clearly definable ends, and to serve groups 
of pupils who wish to attain these objectives. As long, 
however, as we discuss, generally, our curriculum policy 
in terms of the individual child we can never hope to 
reach any scientific justification for our practices. There 
is no subject or group of subjects equally good for all 
children, and upon such a basis we are logically forced 
to open our schools on a free elective basis from begin- 
ning to end. 

This state of chaos and diversity of practice indicates 
the need of organizing and administering the curricu- 
lums in accordance with the aims of secondary educa- 
tion in a democracy. Indeed, the faculty's first work 
in formulating the school's curriculum policy should 
deal with an expression of aims. With the publication 
of the report of the National Educational Association 
Committee on Secondary School Administration there 
will appear a fairly acceptable pragmatic statement of 
the goal of secondary education. Having formulated 
acceptable and worthy, sustainable aims, the faculty 
should then set to work on the problem of adapting 
the offering of the school to the needs of the commu- 
nity. 

A study of the occupations of the community, the 
number of people employed in these occupations, the 
number of graduates entering these, during the past 
several years, a study of what the eliminates do, a close 
scrutiny of the records of those entering college, and 



346 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

of those who have completed the so-called vocational 
courses— these facts should form the basis, first, of de- 
termining the necessary extent of the school's offering; 
second, the organization of the subjects into curriculums 
to meet certain rather clearly definable ends; and lastly, 
the requirements in studies in these curriculums. A 
scientific approach to the problem of curriculum build- 
ing shows clearly that the pupil population of our high 
schools falls into groups, the needs of which call for the 
organization of curriculums. Such an approach further 
reveals the fact that the correlation between the occu- 
pations chosen, or tentatively chosen, by the pupils in 
the early years of their high school course, and the occu- 
pations actually entered, is very low indeed. Conse- 
quently, there is need in our schools for a system of 
educational and vocational guidance that is far more 
fundamental and effective in its operation than any- 
thing yet devised. 

Quoting again from Doctor Johnston: "Educational 
guidance means more than mere psychological diagnosis 
or vocational information and placement. It means the 
more fundamental effort to establish in pupils proper 
internal rather than externally imposed and superficial 
motives for school work, and to administer the whole 
curriculum in this more effective way." 

The war has greatly emphasized the curriculum prob- 
lems. World democracy is upon us. Systems of edu- 
cation, throughout the world, as one of the direct results 
of this war, will be built up more firmly than ever on 
the theory that the highest purposes of society, as a 
whole, are to be attained by the greatest possible devel- 
opment of each individual. But how can this ideal be 
reached? How can democracy be realized or even ap- 
proximated? Is it possible for us to have our curricu- 



NEW CONCEPTION OF THE PRINCIPALSHIP 347 

lums organized so that every child will have the oppor- 
tunity to make the most of himself, and will be placed 
under scientific guidance where he can be best 'served? 
Is it possible to organize our curriculums so that they 
actually stimulate and develop the intellectual, aesthetic, 
and vocational interests of the children? How can we 
organize the school's offering so that the children will 
really be trained for citizenship in a democracy — trained 
in co-operative effort beyond the mere needs of living 
together, and grounded in the social and political theories 
of our national life ? 

These are real problems. They are standing chal- 
lenges and are worthy of the best leadership in our sec- 
ondary schools. The new conception of the principal- 
ship puts these challenges squarely up to the principal. 
He must, in the future, accept them. To do less means 
that he either does not have a vision of his real work or 
is incapable of rising to the occasion. One thing is cer- 
tain — the principal who spends his time juggling cards 
cannot render large service in determining the curricu- 
lum policy of his school. It is doubtful if such a prin- 
cipal has any clearly defined and sustainable curriculum 
policy. 

With inroads on the schools growing out of war and 
reconstruction, with subtle forces endeavoring to abro- 
gate, and, in fact, abrogating to a certain degree, our 
child-labor laws, these problems, for a time, at least, 
will grow increasingly great. We cannot depend on 
compulsory education and child-labor laws to save the 
nation. There is a vast difference between mere atten- 
dance at school and what the child is given after he 
gets there. We must look to the organization and ad- 
ministration of our curriculums of study if democracy 
is to be fully realized. 



348 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

Of methods there follows a short discussion later. In 
regard to the content of the courses offered, this mate- 
rial should be selected in accordance with a sound prag- 
matic philosophy of secondary education and the objec- 
tives in view, in the particular school, a9 determined 
by the school's curriculum policy. There is one factor 
entering into the subject-matter offered that is too im- 
portant to pass over lightly. Subject-matter and its 
organization are largely dependent upon text-books. 
Without entering into the discussion of the proper place 
and use of the text-book, it is a fact that it plays an 
important part in our classroom work. Up to the 
present time little has been done in developing sustain- 
able methods of evaluating and selecting text-books. 
This is a field that has been practically untouched. Too 
often school officials are carried away by the arguments 
of the book man, and the fact that certain large cities 
have just adopted the book. 

Such items as the author's view-point and philosophy, 
the author's aims, the selection and arrangement of 
material, the arrangement on the page, the amount of 
material, kind of paper and type used, the durability 
and the cost should be considered. When changes are 
contemplated, teachers might well use in the classroom 
for one full semester as reference and supplementary 
material all texts under consideration. 

The second large fundamental field in which minimal 
administrative standards need to be set up is that of 
classroom methods. Thi9 implies real supervision of 
teachers and teaching. 

Generally speaking, there is no real supervision of the 
teachers or the teaching in our secondary schools. In 
fact, there is but little visiting of teachers done by the 
vast majority of secondary-school principals. And vis- 
iting is regarded lightly both by the principal and teach- 



NEW CONCEPTION OF THE PRINCIPALSHIP 349 

ers, because it usually ends with the exit of the visitor. 
It distinctly does not end in a conference that is in any 
sense of benefit to the teacher. Teachers succeed or 
fail largely in terms of their ability to carry out instruc- 
tions and to get along with the pupils, or rather their 
ability to remain masters of the situation in the class- 
room in a disciplinary sense. 

There is little attempt to understand the teacher's 
philosophy and views of education as they find expres- 
sion in the classroom. Discussion of the work follow- 
ing a visit is a rare occurrence, except occasionally to 
check up the teacher who is not succeeding in her work. 
But there are potential sides to supervision, regardless 
of the ability and success of the teachers. Teachers 
yearn for leadership in supervision of the right kind. 
They are anxious to have their work checked, and to 
be told that they are doing this or that thing exceed- 
ingly well. They are anxious to change their methods, 
or to try out experiments if they are working with a 
sympathetic principal who knows why their work is 
good and why it is not good, and will tell them frankly 
and honestly how a change will bring larger results. 

This means that the principal must be a good teacher 
himself in some one or more high school subjects. It 
means that he must know the psychological principles 
of teaching and must have rare, good judgment. 

It is through supervision alone that we can unify and 
bring to a high point of efficiency the classroom work 
of the teachers. A greater percentage of new teachers 
could be developed into first-rate teachers under con- 
structive supervision. Failure on the part of any 
teacher in the faculty should be regarded as a personal 
matter by the principal. It is his first business to pre- 
vent failures, on the one hand, and to encourage growth 
on the other. 



350 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

With from 20 to 40 per cent of our faculties changing 
from year to year, supervision becomes an extremely 
vital matter. The new teachers, as regards classroom 
methods and general teaching ability, must be brought 
up to the school's standards, or the whole tone of the 
system will be changed within two or three years. 

The young teacher, and many times the experienced 
teacher, presents a serious problem in that she brings 
to the high school the university organization of class- 
room material and university methods. The principal 
who cannot or does not detect these deficiencies in his 
teachers and make a constructive attempt to modify 
their work falls far short of his duties as a supervisor. 

Supervision is a difficult matter, because it is so indefi- 
nite, so subtle and intangible. There is a common lack 
of standards, because it is so largely a human matter. 
Personality, whatever that is, is an important factor. 
It is easy to get crossed with teachers when discussing 
the things they do in the classroom. Naturally, we 
have had little or no actual supervision. 

One of the surest means of making it a part of the 
work of the principal to supervise teachers is for the 
superintendent to make it mandatory that he not only 
rate his teachers, but defend his rating in terms of defi- 
nite, illustrative material. 

The supervision of teachers and teaching, of course, 
strikes at the heart of the school — the methods of in- 
struction. Here the principal has a rare chance to 
exploit his philosophy of education. It is not a difficult 
matter to create a sentiment for sane methods — meth- 
ods in keeping with the school's purposes. It can soon 
be made the fashion of the school to democratize the 
methods of the classroom, on the one hand, or to make 
them autocratic, on the other. 



NEW CONCEPTION OF THE PRINCIPALSHIP 351 

Every school should have a policy in regard to meth- 
ods. The socialized recitation, for example, is not an 
accident. It is the philosophy of the administrator 
and teachers put into practice. There is undoubtedly 
no greater opportunity to create the spirit of and to 
practise democracy than in our American classrooms. 
Are the classroom activities dominated by the teacher, 
or are the pupils set to work co-operatively to solve the 
problems as they arise? Do the pupils make contribu- 
tions toward the solution of the question? Do they 
assist one another under direction ? Is there just enough 
skilful guidance to make the work of the classroom 
what spontaneous conversation is around our firesides 
at home? These are questions of vital concern to the 
principal. In this larger sense Dewey says: "The reci- 
tation becomes the social clearing-house, where experi- 
ences and ideas are exchanged and subjected to criticism, 
where misconceptions are corrected, and new lines of 
thought and inquiry are set up." 

A third phase of the principalship in its larger sense 
incorporates the leadership and progressiveness shown 
by the principal in conceiving, studying with his fac- 
ulty, and carrying through to successful conclusion new 
movements in education. These are matters that must 
receive consideration in determining the potentiality and 
character of the administration. This is not an issue 
between conservatism, on the one hand, and progressiv- 
ism on the other. It is merely an index to the growth 
and development of the whole institution. It affects 
efficiency of instruction and the general intellectual and 
moral tone of the school. These things already are em- 
bodied as the sixth standard of accrediting secondary 
schools in the North Central Association. 

A constructive attitude toward supervised study, for 



352 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

example, is an important thing both for the faculty and 
the school. Supervised study means more than the 
mere extension of the class period and its arbitrary divi- 
sion into recitation and study. It means a complete 
reformation of our classroom practices, and the faculty 
should be given every chance to study this problem and 
be encouraged in careful experimentation. Educational 
guidance may be a mere formality or it may be made a 
far-reaching influence through a higher degree of corre- 
lation between school-work and life-career motives. 
Library organization may mean merely a sort of collec- 
tion of books and magazines, or it may be made the 
means of cultivating discrimination in reading on the 
part of the whole student body. Schemes for evaluating 
credit in terms of the quality and quantity of work done 
by the pupil cannot be introduced successfully without 
study and planning on the part of all concerned. Teach- 
ers' meetings may be taken up in handling the mere 
routine work of the school, or they may become the 
source of great professional inspiration and growth. 
The leadership of the administration is a vital matter in 
the development of a system of vocational education 
and part-time or continuation classes. The develop- 
ment of a comprehensive scheme for health education is 
largely a matter of vision and leadership, as are con- 
structive programmes for the aesthetic and moral train- 
ing of the pupils through music, art, and drama. 

Lastly, there must be a constructive attempt to study 
scientifically the school's practices. It is a difficult 
matter to place educational practices on a scientific 
basis, and thus remove them from the world of "In my 
experience" or "I believe." This can be done through 
scientific investigation and research and the testing of 
results through the use of standard scales and tests. 



NEW CONCEPTION OF THE PRINCIPALSHIP 353 

There are certain statistical studies that should 
constitute a minimum in high school administration. 
The content of the courses may well be studied scien- 
tifically. Ayres's investigations in spelling have in- 
dicated the possible elimination of waste in other 
branches of study, and even in high school branches. 
How long is it necessary for pupils to study commercial 
arithmetic in order to gain proficiency and accuracy? 
Should bookkeeping courses cover two or four years? 
These are important questions. Another type of study 
closely related to the classroom is that of teachers' 
marks. With the advent of weighted credit schemes, 
it is a matter of first importance that cumulative 
studies of teachers' marks be made. It will be dis- 
covered that there is the widest possible variation in 
marking not only as among departments, but among 
the teachers in the same department. It is likewise im- 
portant to make a cumulative study of promotions, 
failures, conditions, demotions, and eliminations. In no 
other way can a faculty be brought to the realization of 
the great loss in our schools. In some instances fewer 
than 50 per cent of the pupils beginning a course are re- 
ceiving their credits. While ages of pupils and progress 
through school may be more important at the present 
time in the elementary-school field, such a study in the 
high school will tend to focus our attention on the re- 
tardation of boys, especially, and the possible better 
adjustment of work to their needs. Finally, no in- 
vestigation of educational work can be considered com- 
plete which does not show the cost of obtaining the 
results achieved. 

There will undoubtedly be minimal standards set up 
in the near future in regard to the statistical study of 
the work of the secondary school. 



354 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

This conception of the principal's work dignities the 
position. The principal becomes a pivotal man in the 
system, a moulder of educational opinion and practice. 
Thus the position carries with it greater responsibilities,, 
and the school touches the community more vitally than 
ever before. In a new and peculiar sense the principal 
links the school and its internal affairs with those of 
the community. The administration of a wide and far- 
reaching vocational programme implies close co-opera- 
tion with the commercial and industrial interests of the 
community. War work of a vital kind is best done 
when the school and community are working together 
with mutual understanding. A building programme 
to bring the schools in line with the best in educational 
practice must have as its foundation the faith of the 
people. 

The Boy and Girl Scout Movement, the boys' and 
girls' work of the Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A., social 
service organizations, discussion clubs composed of busi- 
ness and professional men, the City Commercial Club 
and Rotary — these community organizations and others 
that will readily suggest themselves offer large oppor- 
tunities for the principal who wishes to render his best 
service to his community. Identification with such or- 
ganizations not only dignifies the position, but does 
much in creating confidence and a tolerant attitude 
toward the things the principal is trying to do. He be- 
comes a "man of affairs," and ceases to go by the omni- 
bus title of "perfesser." 

This discussion has dealt with the spiritual, the sub- 
jective aspects of administration. Naturally these prob- 
lems present a new and a higher field of standardiza- 
tion than has yet been attempted, or, if attempted, 
has been completed. We may expect, however, to be 



NEW CONCEPTION OF THE PRINCIPALSHIP 355 

checked, or measured, by these larger phases of school 
administration which determine the intellectual and 
moral tone of the institution. There is a vast difference 
in the spirit of secondary schools. We shall undoubt- 
edly scrutinize the factors that enter into the making 
of the soul of the institution, and set about the task of 
establishing minimal standards. 

In this newer and more profoundly professional sense, 
high school administration does have spiritual and tech- 
nical sides as well as teaching. The principal in such a 
scheme must be a man strong in leadership, and capable 
of inspiring the best talent on his faculty. He must be 
a man with a sound philosophy of secondary education 
and a vision — a man into whose hands education in this 
larger sense may safely be intrusted. 



THE HIGH SCHOOL AND MODERN 
CITIZENSHIP 1 

Since the World War began every thinking man has 
been surprised both at the ignorance of himself and of 
the American people in general in matters of history, 
especially of those conditions, economic and otherwise, 
which more definitely shape international policies. The 
"international mind" is lacking. We have not tried to 
acquire this international habit of mind, and every 
thinking man who tries to remedy this lack in himself or 
in others finds that there is nothing obvious about the 
just-noticed immediate and actual incident he reads of. 
He finds that the situation requires hard thinking and 
thorough study. He finds himself inevitably on each 
issue led out into the larger relations of human experi- 
ence. He has to think historically, and it is hard work 

1 As a member of the Reviewing Committee of the National Com- 
mission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education the writer 
has had occasion to read critically several drafts of a "Report on 
Social Studies." The particular committee of the commission who 
co-operated in making this report consisted of twenty members, 
selected on a plan radically different from the plan operative in the 
selection of membership for former national committees of this 
character, such as the famous Committee of Ten of 1893, with 
Charles W. Eliot chairman, and the other well-known Committees 
of Seven and of Five. Of the twenty members, fourteen are school- 
men in active service, four are university professors of history, and 
two are specialists in civic education of the United States Bureau of 
Education. This committee has co-operated with the American 
Historical Association through its committee on Definition of Pub- 
lic School History, and with a similar committee of the American 
Political Science Association. After repeated revisions and after 
several critical readings by the Reviewing Committee of the National 
Commission (consisting of eleven members at large and of the chair- 

356 



HIGH SCHOOL AND MODERN CITIZENSHIP 357 

for one who has had little training in it. He often build9 
up his social-science point of view by going backward 
into history. It is at least an open question, also, 
whether the high school pupil may not often better do 
this in some such way, only more systematically, rather 
than by the formal chronological method. 

We wish to ascertain the most reasonable grouping of 
elements in school life and thought that will make an 
army of one and one-fourth million boys and girls 1 real- 
ize that they are members of society, that they have 
duties toward it and correlative rights, and that no 
rights exist without corresponding duties, that it is 
their business to have views on matters of civic morals 
affecting the local community, the city, the state, the 
nation, even the larger society of the world. The politi- 
cal state with its activities is only, as Green has said, 
the shell, the superficial appearance of the real things of 

man of the sixteen subcommittees, of which this present committee 
on social studies is one) this report has been approved and has just 
been issued as Bulletin of United States Bureau of Education, 191 6, 
No. 28, pp. 63. 

This article is inspired in part by the report, the features of which 
are: a clear discussion of the meaning "social studies," which term 
includes history as such but other matter of a social character as 
well, and as prominently; suggested courses (some of them new and 
interesting) which are to go to make up this two-cycle six-year 
extended secondary-school programme; the cycle principle of organ- 
izing the two three-year "sequence" units; a detailed analysis of 
the newly conceived ninth-year "community civics"; the same for 
a senior high school course in the "embryology of civilizations " ; 
standard preparation for the new social studies teacher; and stand- 
ards by which to test the methods and the pupil achievements in 
social studies. Other important discussions in the report concern 
distinctions between history and civics, local history, history for 
rural communities, differentiations of the courses in social studies 
in the cosmopolitan senior high school, and an elaboration of the 
theoretical basis upon which the whole report has been constructed. 

1 Add 2,250,000 if we extend secondary education downward into 
the 7th and 8th grades. 



358 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

history. The nation, the genius of the group, is the 
real thing, which, profoundly a part of the people, we 
can neither make nor destroy. The subjects to be really 
understood in the new history, or social science — under- 
stood, sensed appreciatively by public-school pupils as 
well as others, are such things as impulses of national 
feeling, the growth, development, social conditions, in- 
dustry, and commerce of a nation; in comparison with 
these the surface doings of kings and political leaders 
may be often of minor importance. 

The school's most serious and pressing work now is to 
teach young American democracy these facts of social 
import. Even religious instruction is no more important 
— indeed this social science ought to be taught, as in 
France, with a sort of conscious high-toned religious 
seriousness. The difficult social situations ahead of us 
must be anticipated by the special group of teachers in 
charge of the social studies. Our curriculum philoso- 
phy, so far as these subjects (history and other social 
studies) are concerned, must be thought out with a full 
realization of the great difficulties. The modern demo- 
cratic state is in danger, real danger. Other states with- 
out our democratic organization have done some things 
in a far better way than our democracy has done them. 
Many doubters of democracy among us have a deep 
impression of our amorphousness, our ignorance, our 
disorder, and our lack of discipline; our lazy defenseless- 
ness, with no conscript army and no militaristic ardor; 
without a steering-gear and with no " nervy" discipli- 
narian in the presidential chair to call us to order, to 
chastise Mexico, to reprimand California, to make the 
South sit back in a dark corner; and to dare to call the 
assumed bluffs of all the larger foreign bullies. Our 
whole democratic government, democratic social life, 
democratic tradition, and democratic education (what 



HIGH SCHOOL AND MODERN CITIZENSHIP 359 

there is of it !) enrages the sense of organization and ideal 
of social order, not only of a Prussian, but also of many 
a citizen of our own country. Maybe our modern dem- 
ocratic state, whatever it is (it has not ever been even 
clearly idealized, much less realized anywhere), is too 
blithely entering upon the most dangerous path it has 
ever trodden. 

Our question is, "What are our public schools going 
to do about it?" The answer is, they are going to do 
most of what will be done. Education for modern citi- 
zenship is a large order and covers the whole of educa- 
tion. In a legitimate sense, however, we may place the 
definite responsibility upon the courses in history and 
the other social studies, and inquire specifically what 
are the modern proposals for courses to meet the need 
indicated above and what is the educational principle 
underlying and justifying or condemning these proposals 
for radical reorganization. I shall deal with just one of 
these proposals, one which is significant and character- 
istic of the reforms advocated. 

In order to do this at all satisfactorily one must first 
discuss certain newer notions of the nature of history, 
certain criticisms of prevailing methods and aims of 
teaching history, certain radical reforms in organization 
and administration which have a bearing on the school 
work in history, and certain analogous reform practices 
in foreign countries. 

Woodbridge has recently said that the truth of history 
is a progressive developing truth to which the ages, as 
they continue, contribute. Even in the studying and 
in the teaching of history we are illustrating a tiny stage 
or element in the historical process. All special "ca- 
reers in time," of persons, groups, states, societies, races, 
nations, add to the process. They add to and complete 
the past and condition the future. This " career-in- 



360 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

time" aspect of all serie9 of events reveals history as 
purposive and selective. He goes on to show that there 
is to be no complete history of anything, but many 
interlacing histories. Human history thus becomes a 
record of human progress, of actual rather than symbolic 
improvement, as measured by an intelligible human 
standard — not merely continuous accumulations of re- 
sults in some specified direction. The purpose of man's 
history must necessarily be the "ability to so use the 
materials of the world that they will be permanently 
used in the light of the ideal perfection they naturally 
suggest." This likewise applies to the section of his- 
tory which recounts national progress, 

Everybody perhaps now will grant that we as a people 
need a clearer understanding of national ideals. We 
need to realize what freedom means. We need to ac- 
quire convictions regarding the kind of organized state 
which will make real freedom possible. America, for 
example, is said to be "sick of being well." Do we know 
that the "decay of a national spirit follows far more 
surely from self-indulgence than from military disas- 
ters"? We have thought too much of freedom as being 
merely the existence of opportunities for achieving per- 
sonal or sectional interests — instead of opportunity for 
whole-hearted devotion to the sort of reality of perma- 
nent values suggested by Woodbridge. We need to see 
that our nation, as we idealize it, cannot be the spon- 
taneous and easy outcome of an indefinite number of 
scrambling self-interests or hyphenated group interests. 
Sectionalism, as we now see it, just after a national 
election, is easily our weak link. It indicates conflicts 
of social and of purely political ideals. How to get 
out of this "remedially" is not simple. 

One of the chief agencies, as Dewey well says, for de- 



HIGH SCHOOL AND MODERN CITIZENSHIP 361 

veloping the good aspects of a nationalism which will be 
a friend and not a foe to internationalism is the public 
school. This agency takes first rank. He thinks a sen- 
timental seclusion from this world's affairs, however, 
dominates present instruction in history and social sub- 
jects. Paraphrasing his discussions, the pupil leaving 
the public school at fifteen can only wonder at the odd 
selection of 1492 as the numeral for the year one, and 
can proceed through his course of American history with 
no suspicion of Europe save as a place from which dis- 
coverers set sail and colonists departed, and as the abode 
of men whose evil plans got good Americans into wars, 
and whose affairs and governments are such that the 
less Americans have to do with them the better. See- 
ing something good in this vast provincialism before the 
present years, Dewey now feels it very dangerous. We 
are in a new sense in the same world in which Europe 
exists and into which Asia is coming. Industry and 
commerce will continue, and increasingly, to interweave 
our destinies. The older state of mind has become a 
dangerous illusion. Real national preparedness depends 
a great deal more upon whether we teach American his- 
tory and other social studies in our high schools in the 
right way than upon a few hours daily in perfunctory 
military drill. Our history must be seen for what it 
really is — a reflection of European movements and prob- 
lems; as illustrated, for example, in waves of immigra- 
tion which, as other things, suggest our common and 
international world where world-wide forces are visibly 
operating. American history must be substituted for 
American mythology. There has been too much "tepid 
characterlessness " permeating the atmosphere of the 
school wherever any social topic comes up. For the 
American child evil, for example, has no institutional or 



362 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

social embodiment in our national life. We are the vic- 
tims of a " whitewash of indiscriminate eulogistic lan- 
guage " which covers the difficult and also the interesting 
aspects of our social life. We are rarely vivid or " fired" 
in our classroom depictions of struggles between inter- 
ests intrenched in law, institutions, and social conven- 
tions, and the requirements of further enlightenment 
and emancipation. We talk and teach about a democ- 
racy in the abstract as if it were busily and mysteriously 
working out the miracles for us. Our secondary schools, 
in a measure, and even our elementary schools, as well 
as our universities, should become the homes of serious 
thought and genuine convictions regarding our real social 
difficulties and conflicts. 

The above represents, mostly in the author's own 
phrases, Dewey's critical attitude toward what now goes 
on in the average school under the name of education 
in history and social sciences generally. "Since it (the 
successful accomplishment of the ideal end in social 
studies) is a matter of ideas, emotions, of intellectual 
and moral disposition and outlook, it depends for its 
accomplishment upon educational agencies, not upon 
outward machinery." 

It is easy to parallel these comments with others, 
some of them from professional historians. Professor 
Carl Becker, of the University of Minnesota, comments 
as follows: 

"High school students emerge from their history 
courses with a very slight and not very useful body of 
knowledge about the past, and with a capacity to think 
historically that is in no proper proportion to the time 
spent in such courses; for the most part they have mem- 
orized a few facts which mean little, or a few vague gen- 
eralizations which mean even less. 



HIGH SCHOOL AND MODERN CITIZENSHIP 363 

"What i3 the solution for this fundamental difficulty 
in respect to the curriculum ? Frankly, I do not know. 
But it seems clear that some radical reorganization of 
the curriculum is necessary. The value which the 
study of history undoubtedly may have, and which it 
therefore should have for high school students, will not 
be obtained, I am convinced, until the student is made 
acquainted much more intimately with characters and 
events and those complex and concrete situations which 
alone make the past real and give to the study of it a 
practical and a disciplinary importance. This cannot be 
done without limiting the field covered. Perhaps the 
field should be contemporary history; perhaps it should 
be the history of our own country. In any case, I doubt 
whether any satisfactory solution will be found so long 
as we continue to give distinct courses in history, eco- 
nomics, civics, and sociology. Why would it not be 
possible (it would be difficult, certainly) to organize a 
single course, of one, two, three, or four years, which 
would embrace all that the high school gives in the so- 
called social sciences; a carefully co-ordinated course in 
which history, economics, civics, and sociology should 
all find their properly related place? Meantime, I am 
perfectly willing that some one else should attempt to 
organize this ideal course." 

Professor J. H. Hayes of Columbia criticises even 
recent distinguished historians for insisting that the 
state is the only fit object of historical study, that his- 
tory is "past politics," compendiums of data about kings 
and constitutions, rebellions and battles. Now, he says, 
historians and economists are increasingly giving their 
attention to how man, apart from state action, has 
toiled and travelled or done the ordinary things of 
every-day life. Most of the attempts at such combina- 



364 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

tions, however, he thinks have been mere "social mis- 
cellanies." Professor Hayes thinks he himself has suc- 
ceeded in combining political and social history in a 
real synthesis, giving economic aspects to all chief politi- 
cal facts. He too, however, has failed, admittedly, to 
do anything systematically with the history of science, 
literature, education, philosophy, and art — other equally 
vital contributing "careers in time." 

Many more extreme views easily could be cited. 
Snedden, for example, thinks that history teaching will 
eventually be determined by the conditions under which 
pupils are led to comprehend their social surroundings 
and the underlying principles of social development. 
Making these approaches, the children will be led back 
to use all sorts of historical material for the purpose of 
gaining perspective and illustration; but any sort of 
chronologically remote history, for its mere historicity, 
will never be the point of departure. Indeed, there will 
be no more of what we have ordinarily called history. 
There will be instead sequentially organized courses in 
social studies utilizing materials of history, but in en- 
tirely new and independent ways. 

For perhaps even more radical reforms in organization 
of content and in method of treatment the reader is 
referred to a discussion by L. M. Sears. 1 

I have sought thus to reflect some of the radical but 
constructive views of reform in public-school history in 
order to relate, if I can, some of the proposals for carry- 
ing out in practice these views to a proposed reorganiza- 
tion of the entire administration of the public-school 
curriculum itself. 

" Reorganization " technically means such changes in 

1 School Review for November, 19 16, "Content and Method in 
Industrial History." 



HIGH SCHOOL AND MODERN CITIZENSHIP 365 

school administration as will tend to group in three dif- 
ferent units for both administrative and pedagogical 
reasons the first six grades, the next three grades, and 
the last three grades of our twelve-year public schools. 

Omitting all consideration of the merits of the so- 
called junior-senior high school movement as a matter 
of school policy and accepting the fact that this reor- 
ganization is coming fast and offering opportunities with 
it of fundamental changes in the arrangement of sub- 
ject-matter in every subject from the 7 th grade through 
the 12 th, we may point out that the social-science work 
for this new six-year, two-cycle secondary programme is 
receiving fully its share of study by the reorganizers. 
There are good reasons for this. The social-science 
work will be largely required of all, even when there are 
worked-out differentiated curriculums in other subjects 
for the various student groups. Again, in the mere 
matter of time available for work of secondary grade 
two more years will suggest greater possibilities. Again, 
there being on this plan three curriculum units instead 
of the old two-unit arrangement (eight grade and four 
high school) , organizers of new social-science courses will 
tend to conform more clearly to the three distinguishable 
cycle requirements and sequences of courses within these 
cycle divisions. Another is that history curricula and 
sequences are in perhaps the greatest need of reorganiza- 
tion upon some definite principles. 

The above inadequately stated new aims of public 
school history, together with this new 6-3-3 arrange- 
ments of the grades to make administrative adjustments 
to possible new sequences, combine to create a situation 
which offers great possibilities to those who would re- 
conceive history in its new setting. 

Can we in our reorganized system apply the French 



366 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

and German cycle principle of curriculum construction 
to the whole continuous sequence of new courses in his- 
tory, and apply it in such a way as most nearly to real- 
ize the ideals set forth for the newer social science ? In 
each of the French cycles we find distinguishable organ- 
izations of subject-matter, method, degrees of difficulty, 
and educational outcomes expected. In the preliminary 
cycle, so far as history is concerned, we find the French 
boy passing through the infant classes of biography and 
anecdote, through the preparatory division of talks and 
tales of great personages and principal facts of national 
history, into the elementary division {first cycle) where 
chronologically summaries of the history of France are 
systematically given. This last four-year cycle provides 
a working outline for the boy of the complete history of 
France in her European setting, ending with France and 
Europe down to 1889. Building upon this second com- 
plete history of his own country the French boy has 
made a rather careful survey of the whole world from 
the point of view of how it has influenced his native 
land. While his first or preliminary history study had 
been largely from the point of view of political narrative 
with battles, martial heroes, territorial expansions, and 
governmental changes as points of emphasis, this second 
four-year cycle has systematically enabled him to fill in 
this sort of history outline with genuine economic and 
modern historical interpretations of results of crusades, 
industries, commerce, merchant marine, navy, trans- 
portation, etc. He has at this junior high school period 
had more and better history than the American boy 
who at the end of our senior high school has taken all 
the four history courses offered. 

The last cycle (of three years) again covers the ground 
from Charlemagne to the present day. Now begins a 



HIGH SCHOOL AND MODERN CITIZENSHIP 367 

still more thorough study with broad interpretations of 
movements, policies, and regimes, rather than reigns 
and dynasties. The military portions are curtailed in 
favor of deeper analysis of political and social develop- 
ments of Europe, not merely of France. Cloudesley 
Brereton calls this particular stage of history study (the 
first year being a general survey of the high points of 
world history) the "embryology of civilization." It is 
usually more advanced than our freshman-sophomore 
college history, probably something like the approach in 
the recent "Political and Social History of Modern 
Europe" by J. H. Hayes. 1 

This kindergarten and four-four-three cycle arrange- 
ment is suggestive at once to those of us who are trying 
to do our curriculum thinking in terms of our elementary 
six-year, junior high school three-year and senior high 
school three-year cycle. Although there are certain 
clear objections to the particular cycle scheme as opera- 
tive before the war in France, still on some such frame- 
work we might make a strong case for the reorganiza- 
tion of our history or social-studies course. It may be, 
for instance, that this concentric method of teaching 
history is best suited to our first two cycles, while for 
our senior high school we should prefer to take up on a 
more extensive scale some definite period, using original 
sources and building definitely in some particular sec- 
tion of history, perhaps modern, as Becker suggests, 
upon our junior high school's new foundations. 

It is clear, too, as Dewey has forcibly remarked, that 

1 See also C. H. Spence's three- year scheme for secondary civics in 
"The Teaching of Civics in the Public Schools," 1909. M. Fouille's 
scheme for "sociology" for secondary schools in Revue Internationale 
de Sociologie, October, 1899, and M. Bertrand's "Sociology," a com- 
bination of economics, the history of institutions and social ethics, 
"Les £tudes dans la Democratie." 



368 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

we must consciously through all our social-science 
courses cultivate two definite aspects of nationalism; the 
first is that we have a nationalism to cultivate that is 
different from any of the nationalisms of Europe by 
being interracial and international hi its make-up. We 
have the most difficult task of all, but at the same 
time one that immensely enriches the possibilities to be 
attained. We cannot, therefore, construct our social 
science for any cycle on quite as narrow lines as those 
indicated for France. This means, to quote Dewey 
again, the tremendous task of " teaching each factor in 
respect to each other, taking pains to enlighten all as to 
the great past contributions of every strain in our com- 
posite make-up. Every pupil should know the rich 
breadth of our national complex of racial strains." 

Dewey's second factor which complicates curriculum 
making in history for American schools, is the fact that 
our distinguishing national traits have been the product 
of experiences in subduing nature — not other peoples 
and other cultures. There being no more pioneering 
possibilities, the masses are disinherited in so far as 
external opportunities for developing this distinctive 
American combination of traits are concerned. The 
public school therefore must, through its social studies 
largely, compensate somehow for the loss above noted 
and continue this development of the distinctly Ameri- 
can type, spirit, attitude, mind. If it cannot do this 
there will be a reversion to an undemocratic national 
regime and a false and artificial traditional culture — 
a "refeudalizing" of education; intellect and art and 
leadership for one group, labor and debasing obedience 
for the other. 

We may well ask seriously, therefore, whether we can 
seize the present six-three-three plan of reorganization 



HIGH SCHOOL AND MODERN CITIZENSHIP 369 

wave, and at the same time capitalize the invigorating 
newer ideals of social science by offering a definite plan 
for the reorganization of history courses or all three 
cycles of public education — a plan so definite that future 
text-books and other social-science material can conform 
to its requirements and that teachers can consciously 
develop methods and apply principles of sequences con- 
sistent with the new aims and new material and the 
new administrative machinery. 

It may be well to review briefly the main findings of 
an extensive investigation of the status of history teach- 
ing carried on last year by the North Central Associa- 
tion of the seventeen Middle Western states. 

Ancient-history teachers are more experienced than 
teachers of American history. The sequence of courses 
in history in practice is as follows: Ancient, mediaeval 
and modern, English, American (generally three offered, 
English omitted). All are full-year courses usually, ex- 
cept American, which is usually a part of a course of 
American history and government (two-thirds to his- 
tory). The model history recitation is 200-225 minutes 
per week. The determinant of aims and purposes is 
the maturity of the pupil, scarcely at all the age or 
experience of the teacher. The ranking aims in his- 
tory teaching proved to be: "To cultivate the power of 
handling facts," "to teach the use of books," and "to 
promote good citizenship," success in each being tested 
by written and oral tests, examinations, and reports on 
special topics. 

The North Central Association Commission disap- 
proves the prevailing method of distinguishing elemen- 
tary from advanced courses by mere chronological se- 
quence of topics. In the direction of fundamental dis- 
tinctions, which should mark off courses in one cycle 



370 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

from those in another it suggests a different method of 
use of texts for senior high school courses, more, and a 
different kind, of collateral reading, and, because of the 
few students who elect history courses throughout the 
full sequence, a course in general history something like 
the French course in the "Embryology of Civilization" 
which introduces their highest cycle. 

These suggestions for improvement merely tinker 
with the old order of things. There are, however, many 
experiments available for study which represent definite 
attacks upon the problem of working out a genuine 
cycle system, a sequence of history courses, that is (a) 
for the first six grades which will furnish a basis for 
junior high school history and at the same time furnish 
something with a measure of unity in itself; (b) another 
set of courses of a definable character for the junior 
high school period of three years, laid out in obedience 
to certain general principles; and then (c) possibly sev- 
eral different unit sequences of different kinds of history 
courses for the different curriculum groups in the senior 
high school. 

R. M. Try on, of the University of Chicago, in a 
recent issue of the Elementary School Journal, has elab- 
orated well what these guiding principles should be for 
the Junior High School, and has also analyzed critically 
the cycle sequences of history courses of Berkeley, Cali- 
fornia; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Indianapolis. Perhaps 
the most important cycle organizations of social studies 
and the one destined to be the most influential nation- 
ally is the one recommended in the Report of the Com- 
mittee on Social Studies of the National Commission on 
the Reorganization of Secondary Education of the 
N. E. A. 1 

1 Bulletin 1916, No. 28. See descriptive note above. 



HIGH SCHOOL AND MODERN CITIZENSHIP 371 

The National Commission on the Reorganization of 
Secondary Education was appointed by the N. E. A. in 
191 2, in a way taking over all the work of a former com- 
mittee on the Articulation of School and College which 
itself had been a second edition of the Old Committee 
of Ten. This commission is composed of a reviewing 
committee comprising eleven members at large and the 
sixteen chairmen of the special committees, each of 
which is composed of about ten members supposed to 
be experts in the special fields of subject-matter or ad- 
ministration with which the committee is to deal and 
upon which it is to present a report with recommenda- 
tions for high schools generally throughout the nation. 
The particular report dealing with the social studies has 
been approved by the reviewing committee of the com- 
mission and will soon be exerting its maximum influ- 
ence, we may suppose. For many reasons this report, 
with the possible exception of the. report on the admin- 
istration of secondary schools, will be the most widely 
read and the most widely* adopted, in spots if not in 
toto. 

One of the most important historians on this com- 
mittee is Professor J. H. Robinson, whose writings 
regarding the nature of the "new history" are fre- 
quently quoted. A sort of text for the report is the fol- 
lowing from his pen: "The ideal history for each of us 
would be those facts of past human experience to which 
we should have recourse oftenest in our endeavors to 
understand ourselves and our fellows. No one account 
would meet the. needs of all, but all would agree that 
much of what now passes for the elements of history 
meets the needs of none. No one questions the inalien- 
able right of the historian to interest himself in any 
phase of the past that he chooses. It is only to be 



372 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

wished that a greater number of historians had greater 
skill in hitting upon those phases of the past which 
serve us best in understanding the most vital problems 
of the present." The most fundamental, distinguish- 
ing, and also the most questionable principle assumed 
throughout the report is that "the most vital problems 
of the present" for the high school pupil are the prob- 
lems which he himself is facing now, or which are of 
direct value to him in his present process of growth. 
The committee believes that it will thus be possible to 
substitute a more fundamental and a more pedagogical 
principle than merely that of chronology for organizing 
the material that shall constitute the courses in the 
social studies throughout the whole extended six-year 
secondary programme. 

The term " social studies" rather than "history" more 
adequately suggests the subject-matter directly relating 
to the organization and development of human society 
or to man as a member of social groups. In common 
with all subjects in our extended six-year secondary 
school the controlling aim of the social studies is social 
efficiency. Differing from other school studies in con^ 
tent, these studies afford peculiar opportunity for train- 
ing individuals, as members of society, by cultivating 
patriotic and efficient citizenship — a citizenship broad 
enough, indeed, to include a sense of membership, for 
example, in international leagues. The specific aim, 
however, is "intelligent and genuine patriotism," this 
rightly conceived being among other things a real step 
toward neighborliness among nations. 

Most attempts to "socialize" the academicized mate- 
rial even of common civics courses, to say nothing of the 
old-line history courses, have been superficial and me- 
chanical. What is the true principle for genuinely 



HIGH SCHOOL AND MODERN CITIZENSHIP 373 

socializing all the social studies of the public school? 
This committee says the determining factor in choice 
and organization of materials and in method of teach- 
ing it, also, should be the student's immediate needs of 
social growth. In addition to the text taken from Rob- 
inson above, there is also one chosen from Dewey: "If 
we could really believe that attending to the needs of 
present growth would keep the child and the teacher 
alike busy, and would also provide the best possible 
guarantee of the learning needed in the future, trans- 
formation of educational ideals might soon be accom- 
plished, and other desirable changes would largely take 
care of themselves." 

So much emphasis is placed upon this fundamental 
educational principle, and it is so likely to be misinter- 
preted that I venture to quote a paragraph of the report 
itself. 

"The high school course has heretofore been deter- 
mined too largely by supposed future needs and too 
little by present needs and past experience. The im- 
portant fact is not that the pupil is getting ready to 
live, but that he is living, and in immediate need of such 
mental and social nourishment as will enable him to 
adjust himself to his present social environment and 
conditions. By the very processes of present growth he 
will make the best possible provision for the future. 
This does not mean that educational processes should 
have no reference to the future. It does not mean, to 
use a concrete illustration, that a boy should be taught 
nothing about voting until he is twenty-one and about 
to cast his first ballot. It means merely that such in- 
struction should be given at the psychological and social 
moment when the boy's interests are such as to make 
the instruction function effectively in his processes of 



374 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

growth. A distinction should be made between the 
1 needs of present growth ' and immediate, objective 
utility. As the boy's mental and social horizon broad- 
ens with the process of education, he will become in- 
quisitive about the facts and relations, perhaps long 
before he has direct use for them in the affairs of life. 
The best question that can be asked in class is the ques- 
tion that the pupil himself asks because he wants to 
know, and not the question the teacher asks because he 
thinks the pupil some time in the future ought to 
know." 

Assuming then that the first six grades have been 
modified properly in accordance with the demands for 
social education everywhere, the Report proposes the 
following plan for junior high school (7th-oth grades) 
and senior high school (ioth-i2th): 

Seven to nine years: Geography, European History, 
American History, and Community Civics, three sub- 
jects proper, with explanations which I shall give later. 

Ten to twelve years: European History to about 1700, 
European History from 1700, American History since 
1700, and a course in social, economic, and political 
problems. 

This scheme assures provisions, as in the Indianapolis 
elementary course of study, for emphasizing consciously, 
from the 1st grade up, the civic aspects of education, 
though no "civics" as a special subject appears before 
the eighth year, no geography as such before the fourth, 
and no history before the sixth. Nevertheless, the 
child throughout the elementary no less than the secon- 
dary school is receiving definite instruction in civic rela- 
tions, just as he is all along learning something of geog- 
raphy and historical relations. He is getting the citi- 
zen's attitude and is having the foundations laid for 



HIGH SCHOOL AND MODERN CITIZENSHIP 375 

later systematically building for himself an organized 
conception of what his membership in the community, 
be it local or state or national or broader still, means. 
The "gang spirit" of boys and the "groping sentimen- 
tality" of girls can then, in the next few years of social 
study (12 to 15) be more readily turned into " useful 
channels of social feeling, social thought, and social 
action." 

The report elaborates three general plans for this 
junior high school period, each subject to variations. 
All of them are now being tried out. One is the old 
Indianapolis plan, with geography, history, and civics 
in sequence; another, the new Indianapolis plan, with a 
sort of interorganization of these subjects in such a 
way that the pupil hardly knows he is studying differ- 
ent subjects; still another is the Philadelphia plan, 
which starts civics as a distinct subject early in the 
grades, gradually increasing the number of hours per 
week as the subject grows more complex and the stu- 
dent more mature. 

The term "community civics" suggests a point of 
view; and this point of view is applied to the study of 
the national community as well as to the study of the 
local community. Emphasis is laid on the local com- 
munity because that is the community of familiarity for 
every citizen; and for the child this community is in the 
foreground of experience. Sense of personal responsi- 
bility, desire for co-operation, and the realization of 
membership in the local community can be more readily 
secured than through a study of the national community. 

The pupil is led to compare the social conditions of 
the present with those of the past, and of the immediate 
community with those of other communities. This 
should lead to the new type of history advocated for 



376 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

later years. The study of vocations, for example, dur- 
ing this period, while incidentally helping the pupil to 
choose the right calling in life, would tend to create a 
better understanding and better relations between the 
different classes of people. 

The report states that: "Experience proves that 
pupils who have had such training in the elementary 
schools are the better prepared for their high school 
work, especially in the field of social studies. They are 
also the better prepared for the transition to the larger 
freedom and responsibility of the high school." 

The specific aims set forth for community civics are: 
(a) To see the importance and significance of the ele- 
ments of community welfare; (b) to know the social 
agencies, governmental and voluntary, that exist to 
secure these elements of community welfare; (c) to 
recognize civic obligation, present and future, and to 
respond to them by appropriate action. 

The following elements of welfare are suggested as 
topics to be studied: health, protection of life and 
property, recreation, education, civic beauty, wealth, 
communication, transportation, migration, charities, and 
correction. In addition should be considered the fol- 
lowing topics dealing with the mechanism of commu- 
nity agencies: how governmental agencies are con- 
ducted and financed; and how the voluntary agencies 
are conducted and financed. 

This committee recommends in detail illustrative or- 
ganizations of social studies, suggesting alternative pro- 
grammes, and consciously avoiding excluding still other 
adjustments to requirements of local conditions. 

The report contains many more interesting and im- 
portant proposals and directions. There is a large sec- 
tion devoted to helpful distinctions between history and 



HIGH SCHOOL AND MODERN CITIZENSHIP 377 

civics, one on local history with illustrations of how 
topics of this kind are being developed somewhere, and 
another on adaptation of the whole scheme to rural 
communities. The amplification of the course for the 
ninth year, which is to be either the finishing year of 
the junior high school cycle or the first year of the high 
school in the old organization, important in either set- 
ting, is a feature, a course characterized by a more sys- 
tematic introduction of national concepts, world inter- 
ests, and civic relations of vocational life. There are 
further explanations of how in the senior high school 
there may even be differentiation of curriculums and 
modified social-studies courses for the different curricu- 
lum settings, suggestions discrediting the vain efforts to 
remedy the present situation by merely adding more 
history courses of the old type which gains nothing, and 
discussions of the college-admission questions this new 
order of things will raise. 

The committee is keenly alive to the fact that "the 
lively contempt for history expressed by readers who 
would escape its weight, and the neglect of history prac- 
tised by educators who would escape its authority stand 
responsible for much mental confusion." Agnes Repplier, 
in the Atlantic Monthly for November, 191 6, goes on to 
say that American boys and girls go to school six, eight, 
or ten years, as the case may be, and emerge with a 
misunderstanding of their own country and a compre- 
hensive ignorance of all others. They say, "I don't 
know any history," as casually and as unconcernedly as 
they might say, "I don't know any chemistry," or "I 
don't know any metaphysics." She goes on to record 
that Henry James once confided to her that the only 
reading of which he never tired was history. "The 
least significant foot-note of history," he said, "stirs me 



378 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

more than the most thrilling and passionate fiction. 
Nothing that ever happened to the world finds me in- 
different." One is tempted to ask the committee if this 
is the kind of history they are talking about, and one 
hopes somehow that it is. 

I have said enough about the report. One may dis- 
agree with its fundamental philosophy, or its method, 
or its subject-matter, or its arranged sequences, or 
finally its cycle organization; he will probably in any 
case find it typical of the many current attempts to 
improve public education. 

What of our most vivid incident of overwhelming 
social import? Professor Samuel McCune Lindsay, of 
Columbia University, well refers us to this, the most 
striking social-science lesson the World War is bringing 
home to us, and which in some sane way we must drive 
home through our " social-studies" classrooms. 

Germany turns out to be a " menace and a model," a 
dark " problem for foreign statesmen," and a " path- 
finder in social reform." How get and give the civic 
lesson ? Americans cannot comprehend how the Father- 
land is devoted to the people, and especially how they 
genuinely return this devotion. We do not realize how 
the common good has ever been so effectively erected 
into a goal for an existing state organization which not 
only thereby justifies its existence but perpetuates it, 
and even deifies it. No personal individualistic do-as- 
you-please American attitude is conceivable for a citi- 
zen of such a benevolent republic. The 3,000,000 per- 
sons in civil service are, in the spirit of this static state 
philosophy, impersonal entities in this over-individual 
enterprise, which looks after the individual efficiently in 
all sorts of social service. This regime is the whole life 
of the German to an extent incomprehensible to us. 



HIGH SCHOOL AND MODERN CITIZENSHIP 379 

With a sense of ownership of public utilities, thankfully 
a beneficiary in public pensioning, taxation rates, and 
education, his personal individuality is so beautifully 
ironed out for him that it cannot even be an issue. Why 
should caste be challenged? The generously contrib- 
uted and consciously felt proportionate taxes paid by 
the ruling (the official) ranks clearly for them, and for 
the beneficiaries, purchases the divine right to rule. 
Born to your station, if you are one of the people, your 
excellent school is ready-made for you. Neither you in 
your vocational choice, nor your school in its curriculum 
choice, can, nor has the need, to experiment. Central 
control benevolently and imperially standardizes, and 
on a uniformly high level, areas as large as states. The 
only price for such a perfect state machinery for effi- 
ciency is spontaneity and resourcefulness of the people. 
The spirit of faith in public service is highly desirable, 
the willingness to participate is noble, especially as it is 
a thing outside ourselves. What can be nobler ? With 
Professor Lindsay we say, "the same faith and the 
same spirit for service for ends outside ourselves; but 
for a projected end which shall be 'our collective organ- 
ization/ made up of ourselves, for doing things that we 
cannot do as individuals, cannot do by means of any 
lesser authority than that which the state itself pos- 
sesses." 

Nothing undemocratic is essential to the development 
of a nation great and strong. At present an aggrega- 
tion of racial and sectional groups, by placing social 
welfare above selfishly conceived personal rights and 
by cultivating social policies, we can evolve into a real 
nation of patriots. 

In the spirit of this author: "Let the schoolmaster in 
America bestir himself and the still more numerous 



380 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

schoolmistress seize her opportunity, forget to teach 
hackneyed and dead-letter phrases of the constitution, 
and cast aside the formal civics that never gets beyond 
a dry description of government as it might have worked 
but never did, and instil in the minds of the youth of 
to-day a real appreciation and understanding of what 
our city councils, commissions, and legislatures, the 
health, labor, education, and other departments of city, 
state, and national governments are doing or failing to 
do to meet the real needs of eacji community. Let 
them above all fight the cynicism that regards a public 
officer as a weakling or a crook. Let them foster a 
respect and ambition for public service of every kind, 
and it will not be long before a new national spirit will 
be aflame in the land, and the genius of the American 
people, enriched as it had been by the pioneer spirit of 
so many lands, will devise the necessary machinery for 
social and democratic government in which liberty and 
efficiency are no longer alternatives, but are one in the 
basic institutions of a free, happy, and united people." 



PROBLEMS EMPHASIZED BY THE WAR 

The World War will be followed by a difficult period 
of reconstruction. In these years the schools will in- 
evitably undergo great changes. They will be called 
upon to meet new demands and to meet old demands 
more effectively. While the war has not created any 
new problems in the field of education it has revealed 
many problems in a clearer light and has shifted the 
emphasis in many phases of school work. The secon- 
dary school will always occupy a strategic position in 
the state. It is imperative, therefore, that students of 
American secondary education begin now to consider 
the problems that have received a new emphasis as a 
result of the war. 

The French and American revolutions of the latter 
part of the eighteenth century marked not merely 
changes in forms of government and an increase in in- 
dividual freedom but these political upheavals were ac- 
companied by great industrial revolutions that changed 
the whole economic and industrial system of the world. 
There were revolutions in education, in industry, in 
commerce, in science, in religion, and in every other 
phase of human endeavor. A new world came out of 
that period, the world of the nineteenth century, the 
marvel of all centuries. 

The results of the present World War will be even 
more far-reaching than those produced by the revolu- 
tions of one hundred and twenty-five years ago. We 
may expect political changes not only in Russia and in 
Germany, but an accentuation of democracy in the lib- 

381 



382 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

eral allied nations as well. There is every evidence that 
we are undergoing even now a profound economic and 
industrial revolution. Witness the government taking 
over and controlling the railroads and telephone and 
telegraph lines, building a powerful merchant marine, 
controlling food supplies and the fuel supplies, and 
regulating in many other unprecedented ways the eco- 
nomic life of the country. Many of these measures are 
war measures, but every thoughtful student of affairs 
knows there is a large measure of permanency in them. 
It is reported that the men in the trenches said that 
there would be a new France when the war was over, 
that there would be a new England, a new America, 
that things cannot remain in any nation as they were 
before the war. The soldiers are determined that every 
nation shall be made better by this conflict. 

In the maelstrom three momentous problems of edu- 
cation, each emphasised by the war, are clearly discerni- 
ble — the problems of the physical, vocational, and civic 
and moral education of youth. 

After the war human life will be valued and con- 
served. Nations now realize the meaning of man- 
power. Germany led in the protection and conserva- 
tion of health, in the movement for better housing, in 
the protection of women and children through the regu- 
lation of hours of labor, in old-age pensions and work- 
men's insurance. It is true that she was autocratic, 
protected her people in a paternalistic manner, and 
finally ruthlessly used her mighty man-power in a 
wicked cause. But this fact should not blind democ- 
racy to Germany's wisdom in caring for her laboring 
people. Since the beginning of the war Great Britain, 
France, Italy, and America have begun to appreciate 
more fully the value of human life and to make more 



PROBLEMS EMPHASIZED BY THE WAR 383 

effective provisions for its conservation. The English 
education law, enacted in the late winter of 1918, in 
Britain's darkest hour, is, perhaps, the most forward- 
looking social legislation the world has ever known. 

The schools of to-morrow must give more attention 
to physical education. The conservation of health must 
be based on an adequate programme of physical educa- 
tion in the schools, embracing thoroughgoing medical 
inspection from birth throughout the school life of the 
child, effective corrective and body-building exercises, 
and large opportunities for play. In the chapter on 
physical education the social values of play are stressed. 
It is shown that nations as well as individuals must be 
good sportsmen. Germany has given a terrible exam- 
ple of the meaning of mere brute power. If in the last 
generation Germans had learned to play, they could not 
have committed their unspeakable atrocities. The same 
rule holds within the state. Where a high ideal of sports- 
manship exists the vexatious problems that arise in the 
economic and industrial life of the people will be much 
easier of solution. 

Another lesson of the war is that of industrial and 
economic efficiency. It was the thoroughly organized 
and efficient nation industrially and economically that 
won the war. Germany with her 70,000,000 people 
came very near winning in the early months because of 
her efficiency, efficiency not merely of the army, but 
army efficiency based on economic and industrial effi- 
ciency. 

When America entered the war she found herself lack- 
ing in every kind of skilled worker. The operations of 
the army and navy were greatly hampered. It was 
necessary hurriedly to organize great schools for training 
skilled workers for the army and for war industries. 



384 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

Because of our lamentable unpreparedness the conflict 
was prolonged and lives needlessly sacrificed. The 
tragedy of the situation has been emphasized by the 
peril of the Industrial Workers of the World. 

America can no longer have millions of human dere- 
licts floating about in her population. There is no room 
for hundreds of thousands of unemployed, for millions 
who cannot earn a living wage. It is from the unem- 
ployed and underpaid that those anarchistic movements 
come that threaten the whole fabric of society. The 
existence of such groups must be charged in part to our 
failure to provide an adequate system of vocational 
training. 

These conditions are due in large measure to injus- 
tice in economic and industrial organization. That is 
a problem for students of economics, lawmakers, and 
leaders in commerce and industry. But one of the 
chief factors in the creation of these submerged portions 
of humanity is the lack of an adequate and effective 
system of vocational training. These people are often 
unemployed or underpaid because they have not been 
trained to industrial efficiency and independence. 

Without question there will come in the epoch follow- 
ing the war a gradual but fundamental reorganization of 
our economic order with a more equitable distribution 
of wealth and better conditions for labor. Social jus- 
tice will become more of a reality and less of a phrase, 
but any economic reorganization, to be effective, must 
be paralleled by a development of vocational training in 
the schools. Men and women cannot be economically 
independent and efficient unless they have been trained 
to be self-supporting. With the development of ma- 
chinery, which will undoubtedly continue at as rapid a 
pace as in the last century, this problem will become 



PROBLEMS EMPHASIZED BY THE WAR 385 

more and more complicated. It will be the business of 
the schools to train the youth of the country for the 
work of the country. 

There are enormous difficulties involved in vocational 
education. If the individual is sacrificed to industrial 
or commercial interests, if by the vocational training 
which he receives he is inexorably fixed in an economic 
caste, if our system of vocational training develops 
social strata comparable to those which have existed in 
Germany and other European countries, we shall have 
irretrievably failed. We must provide vocational edu- 
cation without the accentuation of caste. By our train- 
ing we must free and not imprison the worker. He must 
be vocationally trained but at the same time be made 
independent and resourceful. 

Finally, the war has taught co-operation. Special in- 
terests could not fight the war. It demanded the un- 
stinted co-operation of every agency and of every group. 
In England it was early discovered that capital had to 
be conscripted as well as man-power. The laborer was 
willing to make an unselfish sacrifice, but he demanded 
his rights along with the proprietor and the owner. The 
result was that the representatives of the laborer and 
of the proprietor and the owner sat together in the 
little group of the British cabinet that directed Britain's 
mighty war effort. Again, the English were soon amazed 
to find that woman was indispensable to the prosecution 
of the war. Every industry was soon dependent on her. 
Woman, therefore, was suddenly given the suffrage and 
called into the councils of the nation. 

The functions of government have been wonderfully 
extended and in the period of reconstruction may be 
extended still further. This means that the duties and 
responsibilities of citizenship are becoming increasingly 



386 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

complex. Here is the outstanding task for the teacher. 
The schools must be so organized and conducted, and 
must employ such methods of instruction, that they will 
teach boys and girls to take their places as thinking 
citizens in a co-operative commonwealth. Germany 
was led into her great crime because her citizens were 
not trained to think independently on social and eco- 
nomic questions. They had had little practice in self- 
government. They were taught to obey rather than to 
think and to co-operate. In school and home the habit 
of unquestioning obedience to the state and to the estab- 
lished order was so firmly fixed in the German youth 
that as an adult he yielded docile and even enthusiastic 
obedience to a ruthless autocracy. It was, therefore, 
next to impossible to overcome the pitiless efficiency of 
the German school system, and thus liberate the people. 
In America every classroom and every school must be 
organized and administered with the aims of democracy 
constantly in mind. Our methods must be continually 
examined and modified with a view to achieving these 
aims. 

One of the most important problems of the socialized 
school is the overtopping problem of moral education. 
Private and personal rectitude is fairly easy of accom- 
plishment. A higher level of personal and private mo- 
rality and purity has been achieved at the present time 
than the world has ever before witnessed. But the 
same high standard of group morality is more difficult 
of attainment. Labor unions, great corporations, socie- 
ties of one kind or another can commit great wrongs 
against their fellow beings, while the individual has 
no sense of guilt. Not until the highest ideals of the 
race find expression in the moral codes of social groups 
within nations and in all national groups, shall we sue- 



PROBLEMS EMPHASIZED BY THE WAR 387 

ceed in moral education. The problem is not simple in 
the complexity of modern life, but it is, after all, the 
supreme task. This end can best be accomplished in 
that school that attempts to create in its pupils a quick- 
ened social sense by providing the greatest possible 
number of opportunities for practice in the moral and 
civic virtues. We succeed well in creating a prejudice 
in favor of personal rectitude. We must find a method 
of instilling in our youth an equally strong prejudice in 
favor of social and civic righteousness and of creating 
in them that social chivalry that will cause them alway9 
to put the common good above selfish interests. The 
supreme task of the secondary-school teacher not only 
in the difficult and trying period of reconstruction but 
always, in a society becoming continually more com- 
plex socially, commercially, and economically, is that of 
socializing the methods of the school, and through these 
methods giving the individual that education that will 
fit him for the duties of membership in this complex 
society, that will create in him the capacity for initiative 
and independence of thought and for co-operation with 
his fellow beings, and that will give him those prejudices 
and interests which will make him a jealous guardian of 
the ideals of a democratic government. 

During the first century and a quarter of our national 
existence the life of the frontier was a powerful agent 
in keeping alive and accentuating the movements for 
democracy in America. Professor Turner and others 
have pointed out that for more than a century the West- 
ern frontier has been the hotbed of democracy and that 
again and again popular movements have arisen in the 
Western states that have educated the people on the 
whole to a more thoroughgoing democracy and have 
made our government more and more representative 



388 HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION 

and liberal. "Jacksonian democracy," with its empha- 
sis on individual rights, was cradled on the Western 
frontier. The Republican party, with its championship 
of the Union and later of the abolition of slavery, came, 
with its great spokesmen, from the West. In latter 
years the movement for direct primaries, the commis- 
sion form of government in cities, and many other for- 
ward-looking reforms, have arisen in Western states. 
The states of Washington and California are to-day in 
many respects by far the most advanced of all the com- 
monwealths of the Union in social legislation. 

But the frontier no longer exists in American life. 
Free land has largely disappeared. A rapidly increas- 
ing population can no longer overflow into unsettled 
areas. With each succeeding decade population will in- 
crease in all parts of the country. The rapid growth of 
the cities will continue. Industrial and social problems 
will become more and more baffling. The duties of 
citizenship will become increasingly complex and will re- 
quire a higher level of common intelligence and a better 
training for leadership than has ever been required in 
any democratic state. 

In the next century there will be no hardy frontiers- 
men to keep bright the light of freedom and liberty. 
That responsibility will fall to the schools, and the 
schools must become truly the frontiers of our democ- 
racy. 

A century ago President Madison said: "A popular 
government without popular information is but a pro- 
logue to a farce or a tragedy or perhaps both." There- 
fore, "The best service that can be rendered the coun- 
try next to giving it liberty is in diffusing the mental 
improvement equally essential to the preservation and 
enjoyment of that blessing." The fathers of the repub- 



PROBLEMS EMPHASIZED BY THE WAR 389 

lie believed the safety of the new nation would lie in a 
system of popular education. On this belief the Ameri- 
can public-school system was built. If America was 
true to her ideals in entering the World War, that fact 
was largely due to the success of her public schools in 
keeping bright in the hearts of the people the love of 
freedom and justice. But this utterance of Madison's 
has a more poignant meaning for Americans now than 
ever before. The experiences of war indicate that the 
very existence of nations and the endurance of right 
ideals must depend upon systems of public education. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Bagley, W. C. — "The Minimum Essentials versus the Differ- 
entiated Course of Study in the Seventh and Eighth 
Grades." National Education Association. Addresses and 
Proceedings, 191 6, pp. 958-65. 

Bagley, W. C, and Judd, C. H. — "Enlarging the American Ele- 
mentary School." School Review, 26: May, 1918. 

Bell, J. Carleton, and Sweet, I. B. — "The Reading Interests of 
High School Pupils." Journal of Educational Psychology, 
7 : 39-45, January, 1916. 

Bennett, G. V.— "The Junior High School." Baltimore: War- 
wick & York, Inc., 1919. 

Betts, George H. — "Social Principles of Education." New 
York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 191 2. 

Bonser, Frederick C. — "Democratizing Secondary Education by 
the Six-Three-Three Plan." Educational Administration 
and Supervision, 1 : 567-72, November, 191 5. 

Breed, F. S. — "Measured Results of Supervised Study." School 
Review, 27: 186-204; 262-284, March and April, 1919. 

Briggs, Thomas H.— "The Junior High School." New York, 
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1920. 

Briggs, Thomas H.— "The Junior High School." United States 
Bureau of Education, Report of the Commissioner, 1914, 

1: 135-57- 

Briggs, Thomas H— " What Is a Junior High School ? " Educa- 
tional Administration and Supervision, 5:283-301, Sep- 
tember, 1919. 

Briggs, Thomas H. — "A Composite Definition of the Junior 
High School." Educational Administration and Super- 
vision, 6: 181, April, 1920. 

Brown, H. E. — "A Plan for the Reorganization of the American 
Secondary School." School Review, 22:289-301, May, 
1914. 

Bunker, F. F. — "Reorganization of the Public School System." 
United States Bureau of Education, Bulletin No. 8, 1916. 
391 



392 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Burnham, W. H. — "The Study of Adolescence." Pedagogical 
Seminar, i: 174-95, 1891. 

Certain, C. C. — "A Standard High School Library Organization 
for Accredited Secondary Schools of Different Sizes." 
Educational Administration and Supervision, 3:317-38, 
June, 1917. 

Certain, C. C. — "High School Libraries." Educational Review, 
54: 76-82, June, 1917. 

Colvin, S. S. — "An Introduction to High School Teaching." 
New York: The Macmillan Company, 191 7. 

Cox, P. W. L— a The Solvay Junior High School." Educa- 
tional Administration and Supervision, 1 : 619-22, Novem- 
ber, 1915. 

Cox, P. W. L. — "Readjustment of the Solvay Schools." Educa- 
tional Administration and Supervision, 2 : 605-24, Decem- 
ber, 1916. 

Davidson, W. M— "The Library in the Modern High School." 
National Education Association, Addresses and Proceed- 
ings, 1916, p. 538. 

Davis, C. O. — "Principles and Plans for Reorganizing Secondary 
Education." In High School Education, edited by Charles 
H. Johnston. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 191 2. 

Davis, C. O. — "The Subject-Matter and Administration of 
the Six-Three-Three Plan of Secondary Schools." Ann 
Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan, Bulletin No. 9, 
September, 191 5. 

Davis, C. O. — "Public Secondary Education." New York: 
Rand McNally & Company, 191 7. 

Douglass, A. A. — "The Junior High School." Bloomington, 
Illinois: The Public School Publishing Company, 1916. 
(National Society for the Study of Education, Fifteenth 
Year-book, part III.) 

Hall-Quest, Alfred L.—" Supervised Study." New York: The 
Macmillan Company, 191 6. 

Hall-Quest, Alfred L.— "The Training of Teachers to Supervise 
Study." Educational Administration and Supervision, 
7: 160-66, March, 1921. 

Hunter, Frederick Maurice. — "The Socialized Recitation." 
National Education Association, Addresses and Proceed- 
ings, 1916, pp. 101-106. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 393 

Inglis, Alexander. — "Principles of Secondary Education." 
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1918. 

Inglis, Alexander. — "The Junior High School." Journal of 
Education, 84: 595-97, December, 1916. 

Inglis, Alexander. — "A Fundamental Problem in the Reorgani- 
zation of the High School." School Review, 23:307-18, 
May, 191 5. 

Johnston, Charles Hughes. — "High School Education." New 
York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 191 2. 

Johnston, Charles Hughes. — "The Modern High School." New 
York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 191 6. 

Johnston, Charles Hughes. — "Movement toward the Reorgani- 
zation of Secondary Education." Educational Adminis- 
tration and Supervision, 1 : 165-72, March, 191 5. 

Johnston, Charles Hughes. — "Curriculum Adjustments in Mod- 
ern High Schools." School Review, 22 : 577-90, Novem- 
ber, 1914. 

Judd, Charles H. — "The Junior High School." School Review, 
23:25-33, January, 1915. 

Judd, Charles H. — "Introduction to the Scientific Study of 
Education." New York: Ginn & Company, 1918. 

Judd, Charles, H.— "The Junior High School." School Review, 
24: 249-60, April, 1916. 

Keatinge, M. W. — "Studies in Education." London: A. and C. 
Black, Ltd., 1916. 

King, Irving. — "The High School Age." Indianapolis: Bobbs- 
Merrill Company, 1914. 

King, Irving. — "Education for Social Efficiency." New York: 
D. Appleton and Company, 191 5. 

King, Irving. — "Social Aspects of Education." New York: 
The Macmillan Company, 191 2. 

Koos, Leonard V.— "The Junior High School." New York: 
Harcourt, Brace Co., 1920. 

Lewis, E. E. — "Standards of Measuring Junior High Schools." 
Iowa City, Iowa: University of Iowa, 1916. (Extension 
Division, Bulletin No. 25.) 

Lewis, W. D. — "Democracy's High School." Boston: Hough- 
ton Mifflin Company, 1914. 

Monroe, Paul (editor). — "Principles of Secondary Education." 
New York: The Macmillan Company, 1914. 



394 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Newlon, Jesse H. — "The Need for a Scientific Curriculum Policy 
for Junior and Senior High Schools." Educational Ad- 
ministration and Supervision, 3: 253-68, May, 191 7. 

Newlon, Jesse H. — "Standard Library Organization and Equip- 
ment." National Education Association, Addresses and 
Proceedings, 1918, pp. 619-719. 

North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, 
Proceedings, 1916, pp. 174-92. 

North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, 
Twenty-first Annual Report, pp. 5-26. 

Nutt, Hubert W. — "The Supervision of Instruction." Boston: 
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1920. 

Parker, S. C— "Methods of Teaching in High Schools." New 
York: Ginn & Company, 191 5. 

Ruff, C. J. — "Junior High School Principal." American School 
Board Journal, 63: 57, September, 1921. 

Russell, W. F. — "Economy of Time in Secondary Education." 
Educational Review, 49: 20-36, January, 191 5. 

Rynearson, Edward. — "Socialization of the High School." Na- 
tional Education Association, Addresses and Proceedings, 
1916, pp. 519-24. 

Smith, W. A. — "Junior High School Practices in Sixty -four 
Cities." Educational Administration and Supervision, 6 : 
139-49, 1920. 

Snedden, David. — "Six- Year High School Course." Educa- 
tional Review, 26: 525-29, December, 1903. 

Snedden, David. — "The Minimum Essentials Versus the Differ- 
entiated Course of Study." Educational Administration 
and Supervision, 2: 219-34, April, 191 6. 

Snedden, David. — "The Six- Year Course of Study." In "Prin- 
ciples of Secondary Education," edited by Paul Monroe. 
New York: The Macmillan Company, 1917. 

Snedden, David. — "Problems of Secondary Education." New 
York, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 191 7. 

Snedden, David. — "The Peculiar Psychological Conditions and 
Social Needs of the Seventh and Eighth Grades." Na- 
tional Education Association, Addresses and Proceedings, 
1916, pp. 398-403. 

Snedden, David. — "Sociological Determination of Objectives in 
Education." Philadelphia: J. P. Lippincott Company, 
1921. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 395 

Study, H. P. — "Preliminary Steps in Organizing a Junior High 
School." Educational Administration and Supervision, 
3:339-42, June, 1017. 

Tanner, Amy E., Hall, G. S., and Burnham, W. H. — " Ado- 
lescence and Youth." Cyclopedia of Education, 1: 39-46. 

West, Herbert S. — "A Junior High School." School Review, 24 : 
142-51, February, 1915. 

Whipple, Guy M. — "Adolescence." Encyclopedia Americana. 
New York. 

Whipple, Guy M. — "How to Study Effectively." Bloomington, 
Illinois: Public School Publishing Company, 1916. 

Whipple, Guy M. — "Psychology and Hygiene of Adolescence." 
In "Principles of Secondary Education" (chap. VII), 
edited by Paul Monroe. New York: The Macmillan 
Company, 19 14. 

Whitney, F. P. — "Junior High Schools, Provision for Accelerant 
and Retarded Children in." School Review, 27:695- 
705, November, 1919. 

Winship, A. E — "The Junior High School." Journal of Edu- 
cation, 83 : 91-92, January, 1916. 



INDEX 



Absolutists, 41, 62, 240. 

Aesthetic education, 25-33. 

Adolescence, 27; psychological aspects 
of, 128-134; relation to mental de- 
velopment, 1 1 8-1 19, 128-134; re- 
lation to moral life, 127-134; rela- 
tion to social instinct, 122, 254-256; 
time of, 116—117. 

Administration, 18, 340-343. 

Adolescent period, 1 15-136. 

Agriailtural education, denned, 74-75- 

Athletics, in high school, 57-61; asso- 
ciations, 124-125; interscholastic, 
278-281. 

Aurner, C. R., 172. 

Ayres, L. P., 321. 

Becker, Carl, 362. 

"Better English Week," 305-308. 

"Blind-alley" occupations, 11. 

Bourne, R. S., 11-1.2. 

Briggs, T. H., 167, 332. 

Chesterton, G. K., 8. 

Classics, 85, 96. 

Cleveland Survey, 319-320. 

"Cole type," 168. 

Colvin, S. S., 206. 

Commercial education, defined, 74, 75. 

Committee of Fifteen, 155. 

Committee of Ten, 45, 154, 175. 

Continuation school, defined, 76. 

"Cooley bill," 106-110, 113. 

Costs of education, 335. 

Course of study, 66, 67, 78; allied 
group, 77; general, 78; sequential 
group, 77, 78; vocational, 78; credits, 
extra, 79, 86; outside, 79; record of, 
164; unit, 78; weighted, 330. 

Curriculum, 66-67, 85, 96; defined, 77; 
differentiation, 19-23, 42-45, 159- 
162, 167, 181-184; general, 77; his- 
tory, 174-180; junior high school, 
183, 323; organization, 20-23, !03, 
143, 146-148, 159-160, 172-186, 
344, 363, 366; prevocational, 168; 
system, 80; vocational, 77. 



Decatur, Illinois, 174-180. 

Dewey, John, 62, 103-105, ri2, 188, 

204, 239, 351, 361, 362, 368, 373- 
Directed study, arguments for, 206- 

210; arguments against, 212-216; 

organization of, 21 1-2 16. 
Discipline school, 52-54, 241. 
Domestic education, defined, 74, 75. 
Dual system of education, 93-103 

Education* of feelings, 25-33. 
Educational guidance, 18, 56-57. 
Educational method, 50-51, 190-200, 

348-351- 
Effort, doctrine of, 40-50. 
Elective system, 80. 
Elementary education, denned, 70-71. 
Elimination in high school, 301-305; 

statistics of, 302. 
English, 161, 174, 176, 189, 322. 
Entrance requirements, high school, 

46-47; junior high school, 163, 184; 

senior high school, 184. 
"Ettinger plan," 170. 
Evening class, defined, 75. 
Exhibits, school, 317. 
Experimentalism in education, 14, 

317-336. 
Experimentalist, in education, 13, 41- 

62, 240. 

Faculty, high-school, 246-249, 259, 

341-344. 
Failures, in high school, 325-330. 
Foster, W. T., 279. 
Fraternities, high-school, 125-126. 
French, 134. 

Games, in high school, 274-282. 

"Gary plan," 169. 

General education, defined, 73, 82. 

German, 164. 

Group system, 80. 

Gulick, Luther, 280. 

Hayes, J. H., 363. 

High school, definition, 71-72, 82. 

History, 356-380. 

Holley, C. E., 172, 287. 



397 



398 



INDEX 



"Indiana sptral plan," 168. 
Individual differences, 23, 214. 
Industrial education, denned, 74, 75. 
Industrial efficiency, 383-385. 
Interest, 49, 50. 

Internal organization of schools, 48, 
49, 239-253. 

James, William, 3, 5, 29. 

Judd, C. H., 205. 

Junior college, defined, 73. 

Junior high school, 68, 322, 330; ad- 
ministration, 1 52-171; architecture, 
144, 160; criticisms of, 148-149; de- 
fined, 72, 141; entrance require- 
ments, 163; idea, 17; movement, 
15-17, 41-42, 137, 151, 365; num- 
ber of pupils, 166; teachers, 145 

y 

Keatinge, M. W., 24, 25, 29, 30. 
Kerschensteiner, Georg, 91, 92, 100. 
Keyser, Cassius, 96-97. 

Latin, 95, 134, 164, 181. 

"Leavitt and Brown plan," 168-170. 

Library, high-school, 283-298; admin- 
istration, 19; organization, 284; 
present situation, 285-296. 

Major, high school, 81. 
Manual, school, 315. 
Marks, teachers, 326-330. 
Mathematics, 97, 163, 176, 331-332. 
Method, 4-6, 26-30, 71, 250-252; 

educational, 50-51, 190-200, 348- 

3Si. 
Military training in high schools, 57- 

61. 
Minor, high school, 81. 
Moral education, 24, 30-32, 241. 
More, Paul Elmer, 93-95. 

National Education Association, 
154, 166, 202, 345; Commission on 
the Emergency in Education, 224; 
Commission on Reorganization of 
Secondary Education, 371. 

North Central Association, 138, 155, 
166, 202, 205, 351, 369. 

"One-pillar school," 93. 
Organizations, school, 123-126. 

Parents, co-operation of, 301, 313. 

Part-time class, defined, 75. 

Party platform of education, 37, 41- 

61, 240. 
Philosophy of education, 1-20. 



Physical education, 272-283, 383; 

corrective exercises, 273. 
Plato, 19. 

Pound, Olivia, 242. 
Prescribed units in high school, 47. 
Prevocational education, defined, 74, 

168-169. 
Principal, high-school, 221, 225-244, 

316, 337, 355; supervisory duties of, 

227-230. 
Programme of studies, 67; defined, 

76-77. 
Publicity, high-school, 299-318. 

Question, 193-198. 

Recitation, length of, 193-194, 202- 

203. 
Reorganization movement, 15, 41-42, 

69. i37~i5i> 152, 322. 
Repplier, Agnes, 337. 
Ritter, W. E., 91. 
Robinson, J. H., 371. 
Rousseau, J. J., 31. 
Russell, Bertrand, 7, 10. 
Russell, James E., 191-192, 341. 

Santayana, George, 63-64. 

Sargent, Dudley, 59. 

Schedule of classes, defined, 77. 

Science, 104. 

School subject, defined, 78. 

Sears, L. M., 364. 

Secret organizations, 257-264, 266, 

342; statistics of, 263; elimination 

of, 310-311. 
Senior high school, 68; defined, 72. 
"Seven School Virtues," 52-53. 
Sex hygiene, instruction in, 1 19-120. 
Sex segregation, 135-136. 
Snedden, David, 241. 
Social programme, 225-226, 254-269; 

fundamental principles of, 266-268, 

343; regulations of, 268. 
Socialized recitation, 54-55, 187-200. 
Social science, 356-380. 
Spencer, Herbert, 10-21, 51. 
Standards for American high schools, 

46.' 
Stevens, Romiett, 193-197, 334. 
Student government, 241-244, 249- 

253. 
Study, H. P., 158. 
Sturm, John, 91. 
Supervised study, 55-56, 201-217, 236, 

352. 
Supervision, 347-350. 



INDEX 



399 



Teachers, 35, igo, 216-238, 246; 
causes of failure, 232; council, 224; 
junior high school, 147-148; or- 
ganization of, 222-223; rating of, 
233-238, 333; supervision of, 218- 
238, 348; training, 75. 

Teachers College, 341. 

Terminology, high-school, 65-88. 

Tests, standardized, 331-332. 



Unit courses and curricula, 138. 
Unit, credit, 78; of instruction, 79, 86. 

Vocational education, 45, 82, 83, 
385; defined, 73. c 

Wells, H. G., 6. 
Wilson, Woodrow, 98-100. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



021731 958 4 



IMS 



mm 






ran 



